
, J 




•'' •. Samuel Johnson. 



4/7^ 



LIFE 



SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. 



By Rev. C. ADAMS, D.D. 



ILLUSTRATED. 




New York : 

CARLTON & LANAHAN. 

CINCINNATI: HITCHCOCK & WALDEN. 



8 U N D A Y- S C U O O L D B P A 11 T M E N T. 



^^ 



1 



3£- 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, 

BY CARLTON & LANAHAN, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for 
the Southern District of New York. 



TO THE 

YOUNG MEN OF THIS GREAT COUNTRY; 

ESPECIALLY TO SUCH AS, 

AMID POVERTY, DISEASE, AND OTHER UNTOWARD CIRCUMSTANCES, 

ARE STRUGGLINa FOR EXCELLENT SCHOLARSHIP, 

EMINENT LITERARY ATTAINMENTS, 
A NOBLE CHARACTER, AND A VIRTUOUS FAME, 

Qri)i5 Volnmz 

IS PR.\YERFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED. 



PREFACE, 



To the author of this book it has long seemed 
that a plain, straightforward story of Samuel 
Johnson would supply a desideratum in the 
literature appropriate to the youth of this coun- 
try. It is true, we have his biography drawn 
up for us bv a master hand, and with a minute- 
ness and fullness touching certain periods of 
the great moralist's life that is without preced- 
ent or example in biographical literature. At 
the same time it must be admitted that the 
great work of Mr. Boswell, connected and 
blended as it is with those of several other 
authors, presents us with a mixed and par- 
tially-confused picture, which, with all its 
minuteness of detail and fidelity of delineation, 
can hardly fail to weary the youthful eye, and 
prejudice the interest which should attend the 
contemplation of a character like that of John- 
son. In the work alluded to we are confronted 
with a huge mass of materials, comprising his- 



8 Preface. 

tory, politics, religion, discussions, talks, anec- 
dotes, travels, letters, criticism, and casuistry, 
all variously and curiously mingled, and amid 
which the principal hero is revealed to us, it 
is true, in divers interesting aspects. Yet, as 
he ever looms up before us — the prominent 
figure of the panorama — an endless multitude 
of other characters, topics, and features crowd 
theiiiselves upon the vision, and, to a greater 
or less extent, distract the attention, and dif- 
fuse a partial mistiness over the entire scene. 

If all this be so, is the presentation of a 
judicious and careful selection from out of this 
curious conglomeration of materials, thereby 
setting forth in graceful outline, and with a 
somewhat adequate variety and fullness of view, 
and robed, withal, in simple and becoming dress, 
the portrait of so eminent and illustrious a man 
as Johnson, an unworthy or mistaken idea .'' 

Such an idea is what is attempted to be 
embodied in the production hereby presented 
to the youthful reader ; and presented not 
without hope of the approbation of a virtuous, 
intelligent, and candid public. 

Illinois Female College, Aiml, 1869. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 



Birth— Parents— Anecdote— " King's Evil "—First Teacher- 
Subsequent Teachers— Whippings— Early Intellectual Superi- 
ority — Great Memory — Amusement — Fondness for Eeading — 
Progress Page 31 

CHAPTER II. 

Johnson enters Oxford University — Introduction — Appear- 
ance and Behavior — Impression — Tutor — Irregular Attendance 
— Cause — Evinces special Talents — Applause — Hypochondria — 
Efforts for EeKef— Mind Uninjured— Religious State— Law's 
" Serious Call " — Its Influence — College Studies — Manner of 
Reading— Popularity— Sociability— Poverty — Return to Lichfield 
—Father's Death— Noble Position 33 

CHAPTER III. 
The " Situation "—First Efforts— A School Usher— Disgust- 
Resignation — At Birmingham — Proposals — Candidate for Teach- 
ing — Failure — Curious Letter — Marriage — Ride to the Church- 
Singular Beginning of Matrimonial Life 43 

CHAPTER IV. 
A Private Academy — Announcement — Pupils — Failure — 
Causes — Goes to London — Mode of Living — Tragedy, '* Irene " — 



lo Contents. 

VisitB Home— Returns to London with Mrs. Johnson—" Irene" 
rejected by the Players — Gentlemen's Magazine — Poem, "Lon- 
don "—Much celebrated— Diappointments Page 50 

CHAPTER V. 
Johnson "shut up" to his Pen— " Parliamentary Debates" 
— Curious Process— A Speech of Pitt— Greatly celebrated and 
applauded— Johnson its Author— Disapproval of Conscience- 
Numerous Compositions— Life of Richard Savage— Johnson's 
extreme Poverty — His Wife— A silent Interval — Surmise of 
BosweU 61 

CHAPTER VL 

Johnson commences his Dictionary — Plan of the Work — Dedi- 
cation — ^Extract — Publishers — Compensation — Amanuenses — 
Mode of Procedure— Diversions— Club— Its Purpose— Johnson's 
Manner of Conversation — Anecdote — Wit and Humor — " Vanity 
of Human Wishes" — Mode of Composition — Affecting Incident 
— Tragedy, "Irene" — Arranged for the Stage by Garrick — 
Moderate Success — Financial Result 69 

CHAPTER VII. 
" The Rambler" commenced — Preparatory Prayer — Character 
of " The Rambler " — Public Estimate — Death of Mrs. Johnson — 
Her Husband's deep Affection for her — Improved Circumstances 
— ^Francis Barber— Enlarged Circle of Friends — " The Adven- 
turer "—His great Work 78 

CHAPTER VIIL 
Prayer at New Year, 1753— Progress of the Dictionary— Life 
of Edward Cave— Breach with Lord Chestei-field- Letter to his 
Lordship— Johnson's Opinion of him—" Letters to his Son"— 
Johnson visits Oxford— Reception— Anecdote of his First Tutor 
— Receives the Degree of Master of Arts — Acknowledgments. 8fi 



Contents. 1 1 

CHAPTER IX. 

Dictionary Finished — Seven Years' Work — Vexation of the 
Publishers — Flattering Notices — Author's somber Eeflections — 
Poverty — Various Compositions — Judgment of Friends — A new 
Edition of Shakspeare — Personal Notices of John son... Page 100 

CHAPTER X. 
A new Edition of Shakspeare — Prospectus — Outrageous delay 
of the Work — Churchill's Satire — Character of the Notes — Com- 
mences "The Idler "—Continued two Years— Its Character — 
Johnson invited to the Clerical Profession — Declines — Finances 
again low — Eetrenchment — Letter to his dying Mother — Her 
Death — Writes " Easselas " — Rapid Composition — Compensation 
—Great Celebrity 112 

CHAPTER XI. 
Johnson still writing— Still poor— Dawn of Day— George III. 
— Patron of Science and Art — Johnson recommended for a Pen- 
sion — A Pension of Fifteen Hundred Dollars Awarded — His 
Gratitude — A " Reward of Merit " — Letter to Lord Bute— Benev- 
olence amid altered Circumstances — General Mode of Life — 
Attachment to London — Ireland — Noble Sentiments — Remarks 
upon Methodism and Wesley 120 

CHAPTER XII. 

James Bos well — Peculiarities — Travels — Reverence for John- 
son — Talents for Biography — Introduction — First Reception — 
Second Interview — Johnson's appearance at the Interview — Kit 
Smart— Next Interview and Conversation— Power of Education 
— Johnson's liking for Boswell — Curious Alliance — Boswell 
greatly Elated— Conversations at " The Miter "—Criticisms — 
Mutual Friendship established 129 



12 Contents. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Oliver Goldsmith— A Brief Notice of Him— One of Johnson's 
Admirers — Appreciated in Eeturn — Characteristic Anecdote — 
Churchill — Arbuthnot — Addison — Ogilvie — " Noble wild Pros- 
pects " — Mrs. Brooke and the St. Lawrence — Brighthelmstone 
Downs — Particular Plans of Study — Historians — Converse with 
"Wise Men preferable to Sightseeing — An Impudent Fellow — 
Hume's Style— His Skepticism — Johnson's Answer to Hume 
against Miracles— His Love for Young People Page 140 

CHAPTER XIV. 
Johnson's Library — Private Study — Excursion to Greenwich 
with Boswell — Conversation on the Classics — On Methodist 
Preaching — Advice to Boswell in respect to Reading and Study 
— Return home late — More pleasant Talk — The Friendship of 
Johnson and Boswell — Speculations — Boswell starts on his 
Travels — Johnson accompanies him to Harwich — Humorous 
Conversation with a Lady — Returns to London 154 

CHAPTER XV. 
"Good Eating" — Johnson's view of it — His manner of Eat- 
ing described — His Sentiments touching Dinners, and Eating 
generally — A Capital Rebuke from his wife — Self-contradiction 
—Extract from " The Rambler " 163 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Hypochondria— Severe Attack— Talking to himself— Various 
Singularities of Conduct and Movement — Anecdote — Miss Rey- 
nolds's Account — Madam D'Arblay — Macaulay 170 

CHAPTER XVII. 
Johnson to Boswell— Important Hints touching Reading and 
Study — Kindred Suggestions to an Oxford Student 170 



Contents. 13 



CHAPTER XVIII. 
Johnson's Eeligious Position — Sundry Extracts from Ms 
Diary — His Eeligious Experience collated with that of his Con- 
temporary, Fletcher of Madeley — Inference — Judicious Eemarks 
of Johnson relating to the Christian Question Page 183 

CHAPTER XIXV 

Johnson receives the Degree of LL.D. — Introduction to the 
Thrales— Sketch of Mr. Thrale— Of Mrs. Thrale— An elegant 
Home — Eecreations — Sunshine and Quiet after Clouds and Tem- 
pests — A Melancholy Sequence — Johnson's London Home. 191 

CHAPTER XX. 

Johnson finishes his Edition of Shakspeare — Nine Years in 
hand — But slightly interested in the "Work — Hence a Moderate 
Result — Johnson's Interview with George III. — Report of their 
Conversation — Johnson greatly pleased with the King 200 

CHAPTER XXI. 

Catharine Chambers, a Servant of the Johnson Family Forty- 
three Years — Last Sickness— Johnson visits Home — Prays with 
her — The Prayer for her — Strictures upon the Prayer — Prayer of 
the Syrophenician Woman — Other Prayers of Johnson 209 

CHAPTER XXIL 
I Conversation on Religion — Romanism — Presbyterianism — 
Thirty-nine Articles — Predestination —Papal Doctrines — John- 
son's respect for the Roman Church — Subject of Death — Future 
State 215 

CHAPTER XXIIL 

Sketch of Johnson at sixty-four years of age — Piety — Knowl- 
edge — Reasoning Power — Imagination — Temperament — Con- 
versation — Person — Countenance — Convulsive Movements — 
Dress 226 



14 Contents. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

Jolinson on a Tour to the Hebrides — Eeaches Edinburgh 
— Guest of Boswell — Bos well's Family — Interview with Dis- 
tinguished Men — Conversation about Burke, Newton, White- 
field, Wesley —Johnson and Boswell start for the West. Page 231 

CHAPTER XXV. 
Specimen of Egotism — The Travelers leave Edinburgh — Frith 
of Forth— St. Andrews — Johnson's Wrath at John Knox — Dun- 
dee — Montrose — Lord Monboddo — Aberdeen — The University — 
Pleasant Interviews — Inverness — The Highlands — Glenelg — Isle 
of Skye— Welcome Reception — Island Scenery — Isle of Easay — 
The Crossing — Singing — Music and Dancing — Delight of the 
Travelers— Island Described— Return to Skye— Islands of Mull 
and Col— Mild Climate— Discomforts — lona— Splendid Extract 
— Eeaches the Main Land 237 

CHAPTER XXVI. 
Return to Edinburgh— Johnson arrives at London— Industry 
as a Traveler— Prepares an Account of his Tour— Letters to Mrs. 
Thrale while in Scotland— Bos well's Home— Professors at St. 
Andrews — Expenses of Education — Further Notices of the 
Islands— Glasgow— Edinburgh 246 

CHAPTER XXVIL 
Johnson on another Tour — Accompanies the Thrales to Wales- 
—Absence of Three Months— Publishes his " Journey to the 
Western Islands "— " The Patriot "—Toryism— Extract— " Tax- 
ation no Tyranny"— His general bearing toward America — Dis- 
sent of Boswell — Bosw ell's Sentiments touching "Taxation no 
Tyranny "—Noble Rebuke from Dr. Towers— Rev. Mr. Temple 
— Wesley Sympathizes with Johnson — Johnson's Compliment 
to Hira— " Per Contra" 255 



Contents. 1 5 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

Johnson still Traveling — Visits Paris — Weary of Sight-seeing 
— Describes the French — Eeflections upon French Manners- 
Curious Specimens — Converses in Latin — His Knowledge of 
French— Eetarn to England Page 264 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

Dr. Johnson at Seventy — No Mental Decay — Deemed Dotage 
Unnecessary — Its Causes — Mrs. Knowles — Conversation on 
Friendship —" Except an American" — In a Rage — The pos- 
sible Secret — Conversation on Death — "Weak Faith and Mighty 
Bigotry— The more Divine Way 268 

CHAPTER XXX. 

A pleasant Incident — Johnson meets a Fellow-student after 
Forty-nine Years — Gradual Recognition — The Interview and 
Conversation — Eeflections and Queries — Another Meeting . . 276 

CH.APTER XXXT. 

"Lives of the English Poets" — Its Origin — How Written — Its 
Character — Gratification of the Publishers — Extra Compensa- 
tion—A Rare Collection of Biography 283 

CHAPTER XXXII. 

Death of Mr. Thale — A great Bereavement — Johnson one of 
his Executors — Letter to Mrs. Thrale — Second Letter — Third 
Letter — Johnson takes formal leave of the Family 286 

CHAPTER XXXIII. 

Johnson suffers a Paralytic Stroke — Death of Mrs. Williams — 
Letter to Mrs. Montague — Letter to Mrs. Porter — Letter to Mrs. 
Thrale 202 



1 6 Contents. 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 

Another Conversation — Hannah More and other Distin- 
guished Ladies — Burke — Foote — " The Eambler " translated 
into Russian— JRoman Catholic Religion — A Casuistical Question 
discussed — Another Religious Conversation Page 298 

CHAPTER XXXV. 

Johnson Struggling with two Fatal Diseases — Affecting Note 
to Boswell — Clings to Life — Makes his Will — Its Provisions — 
Despairs of Life — Decision of his Physician — Last Days — Death 
— A Peaceful Departure — Buried in Westminster Abbey — Mon- 
ument in St. Paul's Cathedral 308 

CHAPTER XXXVL 

Johnson on Books and Reading — Don Quixotte — Pilgrim's 
Progress — Robinson Crusoe — Iliad — Mary Wortley Montague's 
Letters — Johnson's Manner of Reading — Advice on Reading 
Books through — ^Reading and Writing — Suitable Books always 
in Readiness — Advantage of Small Books — Inclination as Con- 
nected with Reading — Reading and Conversation — ■" Snatches " 
of Reading — Boys' Reading — Reading and Business — "Never be 
without a Book " — Books recommended to a Young Man. . 312 

CHAPTER XXXVII. 

Johnson's Remarkable Powers of Conversation — His Ap- 
preciation of its Great Value— A Silent Young Lady— Johnson's 
Method of Conversation — Lord Bacon's Precept — Johnson's 
View of "Solid" Conversation — Unsuitable Topics — Talking 
for Fame — For Relief of a Burdened Mind — Burke — How 
Johnson's Conversational Skill was acquired— Questioning — 
Requisites 321 



Contents. 17 

CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

Johnson's Power of Composition — Interesting Conversation 
on the Subject — Eapid Composition — Accuracy — Danger from 
Slow Composition — Blair — Sermons — Curious Calculation — Ad- 
vice to a Young Clergyman — "Invent, then Embellish" — Com- 
position should be commenced early — Lord Granville — "Happy 
Moments " for Composition— Johnson's View Page 329 

CHAPTER XXXIX. 

Sayings and Anecdotes — The Whole Mind — Military and 
Literary Fame— An Author's First Work— Biography of Literary 
Men— Duty of a Biographer— Priestley's Theological Works- 
Christian Argument — Grotius — Newton— Baxter's Works — Wes- 
ley — His Continual Motion — Whitefield — Johnson's Opinion of 
his Oratory — Secret of its Influence — Dr. Watts — His Poetry 
and other Works — Spontaneous Friendship — Love — Marrying 
for Love— Curious Dialogue concerning Marriage— More Sober 
View of Love — Rural Life — Lord Bute's Country Seat — Conver- 
sation — Labor and Exercise — Keeping Accounts — Questioning — 
Rebuke of a Questioner— Johnson himself a Questioner— His 
hatred of long Stories— Anecdote— Dotage— Johnson denounces 
the Idea 334 



(|llttslrati:0ns* 



Page 
Samuel Johnson 2 

Paklob of House in which Johnson was Born 20 

Lichfield in 1730 55 

Johnson Eepulsed from Chesterfield's Door 91 

Johnson's House in Gough Square 105 

Boswell's Introduction to Johnson 133 

Goldsmith under Arrest 143 



LIFE 



OF 



SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D, 



CHAPTER I. 



Samuel Johnson was born at Lichfield, En- 
gland, September i8, 1709. His father was 
Michael Johnson, of obscure birth, and was 
settled in Lichfield as a bookseller and sta- 
tioner. Both of his parents were somewhat 
advanced at the time of their marriage. Hence 
only two children were born to them : Samuel, 
the illustrious subject of this sketch, and 
Nathaniel, who died at the early age of twenty- 
five. 

Not much is recorded of the father of Samuel 
Johnson. He seems to have been for a time 

successful in his business, yet afterward lost 
2 



22 Life of Samuel yohnson. 

most of his prop- 
erty, and declined 
into straitened cir- 
cumstances. The 
son writes as fol- 




MICHAEL JOHNSON. 



lows of his parents: 
" My father and 
mother had not 
much happiness 
from each other. 
She had no value for his relations ; those, in- 
deed, whom we knew of were much lower than 
hers. This contempt began, I know not on 
which side, very early; but, as my father was 
little at home, it had not much effect. They 
seldom conversed, for my father could not bear 
to talk of his affairs ; and my mother, being un- 
acquainted zvith books, cared not to talk of any 
thing else. ... Of business she had no distinct 
conception ; and, therefore, her discourse was 
composed only of complaint, fear, and suspicion. 
Neither of them ever tried to calculate the 
profits of trade, or the expenses of living. My 



Life of Samuel JoJuison. 



23 




mother conclud- 
ed that we were 
poor, because we 
lost by some of ^ 
our trades ; but ' 
the truth was that : 
my father, hav- 
ing, in the early 
part of his life, 
contracted debts, 
never had trade mrs. johnson. 

sufficient to enable him to pay them and to 
maintain his family." * 

* A romantic incident of the father, Michael Johnson, seems 
to be well authenticated. " A young woman of Leek, in Staf- 
fordshire, while he served his apprenticeship there, conceived 
a violent passion for him ; and though it met with no favorable 
return, followed him to Lichfield, where she took lodgings op- 
posite to the house in which he lived, and indulged her hopeless 
flame. When he was informed that it so preyed upon her mind 
that her life was in danger, he, with a generous humanity, went 
to her and offered to marry her, but it was then too late. Her 
vital power was exhausted, and she actually exhibited one of 
the very rare instances of dying for love. She was buried in 
the Cathedral of Lichfield ; and he, with a tender regard, placed 
a stone over her grave." 



24 Life of Samuel Johnson. 

Thus Samuel Johnson was a poor boy, 
though in very early life he gave evidence of that 
independence of spirit, and some other traits of 
character, by which he was so much distin- 
guished in subsequent life. At four years old, 
"one day when the servant, who used to be 
sent to school to conduct him home, had not 
come in time, he set out by himself, though he 
was then so near-sighted that he was obliged 
to stoop down on his hands and knees to take 
a view of the kennel before he ventured to step 
over it. His schoolmistress, afraid that he might 
miss his way, or fall into the kennel, or be run 
over by a cart, followed him at some distance. 
He happened to turn about and perceive her, 
and feeling her careful attention as an insult to 
his manliness, he ran back to her in a rage, 
and beat her as well as his strength would 
permit." * 

This defect in his vision seems to have 
been caused by scrofula, which he is said to 

* A doubtful story. All this is too much for a boy of four 
years. 



Life of Savmel Johnson. 25 

have contracted from his nurse ; from whom, 
after ten weeks, he was taken home a poor 
diseased infant, and almost blind. His mother, 
yielding to the superstitious notion so long 
prevalent that a royal contact would heal this 
malady, brought him to Queen Anne, whose 
touch, however, failed to benefit him. " I was 
taken to London," he says, '' to be touched for 
the evil by Queen Anne. I always retained 
some memory of this journey, though I was 
then but thirty months old." 

Samuel's first teacher was a Mrs. Oliver ; 
a widow lady who taught a school for young 
children in Lichfield. This lady, when, a 
dozen years afterward, he was starting for 
Oxford University, came to take leave of 
him, brought him, in her simplicity, a present 
of gingerbread, and told him he was the best 
scholar she ever had. The memory of this 
early compliment always delighted him ; and, 
in after years, he was wont to say that " this 
was as high a proof of his merit as he could 
conceive." 



26 



Life of Samuel yohnson. 




LICHFIELD SCHOOL. 



At about ten years of age he began the 
study of Latin with Mr. Hawkins, a subordinate 
teacher of Lichfield School, which school was 
very respectable in its time. As he advanced, 
he came under the tutorship of the master of 
the school, Mr. Hunter. This Hunter, though 
a capital teacher, seems to have been terribly 
severe withal ; beating his pupils unmercifully, 
and punishing them equally for not knowing a 
thing as for neglecting to acquire it. Yet 
Johnson was always aware how much he owed 



Life of Samuel Johnson. 27 

to Mr. Hunter. A friend one day asked him 
" how he had acquired so accurate a knowledge 
of Latin," in which he was exceeded by no man 
of his time. He answered, " My master whipped 
me very well. Without that, sir, I should have 
done nothing." He added, that " while Hunter 
was flogging his boys unmercifully, he used 
to say, 'and this I do to save you from the 
gallows.' " * 

The intellectual superiority of Samuel John- 
son was perceived and acknowledged from his 
earliest years. There seems to have been no 
dispute or contest here ; but the case was as 
clear as "the superiority of stature in some 
men above others." One of his schoolmates 
at this time states that he never knew him 
corrected at school but for talking, and divert- 
ing other boys, from their business. He seemed 

'-■ Dr. Joliiisou seems to have always approved the rod for the 
correction of children. "I would rather," said he, "have the 
rod to be the general terror to all, to make them learn, than 
tell a child, ' If you do thus or thus you will be more esteemed 
than your brothers or sisters.' " Ay ; but is there no third 
way, and superior to either of the others? 



28 Life of Samuel Johnson. 

to learn by intuition ; for though indolence and 
procrastination were inherent in his constitu- 
tion, whenever he made an exertion he did 
more than any one else. In short, he is a memo- 
rable instance of what has been often observed, 
that " the boy is the man in miniature ;" and 
that the distinguishing characteristics of each 
individual are the same through the whole 
course of life. His favorites used to receive 
very liberal assistance from him ; and such 
was the submission and deference with which 
he was treated, such the desire to obtain his 
regard, that three of the boys used to come in 
ll I the morning as his 

■■'^ ^"^ humble attendants, 

and carry him to 
school. One in the 
middle stooped while 
he sat upon his back, 
and one on each side 
supported him, and 
thus he -was borne 
BEARING JOHNSON TO SCHOOL. triumphant. Such a 




Life of Saumel Johnsoji. 29 

predominance of intellectual vigor is very re- 
markable, and does honor to human nature." * 

" He discovered a great ambition to excel, 
which roused him to counteract his indolence. 
He was uncommonly inquisitive ; and his 
memory was so tenacious that he never forgot 
any thing that he either heard or read. Mr. 
Hector, one of his schoolmates, remembered 
having recited to him eighteen verses, which, 
after a little pause, he repeated verbatim — vary- 
ing only one epithet, by which he improved 
the line." 

" He never joined with the other boys in 
their ordinary diversions. His only amuse- 
ment was in winter ; when he took a pleasure 
in being drawn barefooted upon the ice by a 
boy who pulled him along by a garter fixed 
round him ; no very easy operation, as his size 
was remarkably large." 

As to his reading, at this period of his boy- 

* "Intellectual vigor" is truly of great influence; but it is 
not absurd to suppose that some other kind of vigor in the 
boy Johnson might have induced such a ridiculous obse- 
quiousness. 



30 Life of Samuel yohnsoii. 

hood, Johnson is said to have been immoder- 
ately fond of romances, which fondness he 
retained through Ufe ; and it was to this sort 
of reading that he attributed that " unsettled 
turn of mind which prevented his ever fixing 
in any profession." Will the youthful reader 
make a note of this ? 

We find Johnson in the Lichfield school 
until about sixteen years of age, when he was 
transferred to a school at Stourbridge, where 
he passed a little more than a year, but without 
realizing so much benefit as was expected. 
Alluding to his progress at the two schools, he 
thus discriminated : " At one (Lichfield) I 
learned much in the school, but little from the 
master ; in the other I learned much from the 
master, but little in the school." 

The two subsequent years — from seventeen 
to nineteen — he was at home. Of this inter- 
esting period of his life we have the following 
notice : 

" The two years which he spent at home, 
after his return from Stourbrido;e, he passed in 



Life of Samuel yohnson. 31 

what he thought idleness, and was scolded by his 
father for his want of steady application. He 
had no settled plan of life, nor looked forward 
at all, but merely lived from day to day. Yet 
he read a great deal in a desultory manner, 
without any scheme of study, as chance threw 
books in his way, and inclination directed him 
through them. He used to mention one curi- 
ous instance of his casual reading when but a 
boy. Having imagined that his brother had 
hid some apples behind a large folio upon an 
upper shelf in his father's shop, he climbed up 
to search for them. There were no apples, 
but the large folio proved to be Petrarch, 
whom he had seen mentioned in some preface 
as one of the restorers of learning. His curi- 
osity having been thus excited, he sat down 
with avidity and read a great part of the book. 
What he read during these two years was not 
works of mere amusement — not voyages and 
travels, as he said, * but all literature, all ancient 
writers, all manly.' In this irregular manner 
I had looked into a great many books which 



32 Life of Samuel Johnson. 

were not commonly known at the Universities, 
where they seldom read any books but what 
are put into their hands by their tutors ; so 
that when I came to Oxford, Dr. Adams, now 
Master of Pembroke College, told me that I 
was the best qualified for the University that 
he had ever known come there." 



Life of Samuel Johnson. 33 



CHAPTER II. 

October 31, 1728, and in his nineteenth year, 
Samuel Johnson was entered at Pembroke Col- 




PEMBROKE COLLEGE GATEWAY. 



lege, Oxford University. A gentleman, Mr. 
Corbett, entered at the same time a son who 



34 Life of Samuel JoJinsoji. 

had been educated in the same school with 
Johnson ; and it was proposed that the latter 
should attend young Corbett as an assistant in 
his studies, and thus receive as compensation 
his own support at the University. 

Johnson's father accompanied him to Oxford ; 
and, as he introduced his boy to the tutors and 
others, he "seemed very full of the merits of 
his son," and told the company he was a good 
scholar and a poet, and wrote Latin verses. 
His figure and manner appeared strange to 
them, but he behaved modestly, and sat silent, 
till, upon something which occurred in the 
course of conversation, he suddenly struck in 
and quoted Macrobius ; * and thus he gave the 
first impression of that more extensive reading 
in which he had indulged himself" 

Johnson's tutor seems not to have been a 
man of such abilities as were adequate or satis- 
factory to his new pupil ; and the latter would 
often risk the payment of a small fine rather 

* A Latin author, who lived in the fifth century of the Chris- 
tian era. 



Life of S aimed jFohnson. 35 

than attend the lectures of his tutor. Hence, 
on one occasion of being fined he says to his 
teacher, *' Sir, you have sconced me two pence 
for non-attendance at a lecture not worth one 
penny." In alluding afterward to this college 
tutor of his, he says of him, " He was a very 
worthy man, but a heavy man, and I did not 
profit much by his instructions ; indeed, I did 
not attend him much. The first day after I 
came to college I v/aited upon him, and then 
stayed away four. On the sixth, Mr. Jordan 
(the tutor) asked me why I had not attended. 
I answered I had been sliding in Christ Church 
meadow. And this I said with as much no7i- 
clialaiice as I am now talking to you. I had no 
notion that I was wrong, or irreverent to my 
tutor." But he afterward declared it to be 
" stark insensibility." * 

Yet he seems to have entertained a positive 

* All this needs to be guarded. It was characteristic of Dr. 
Johnson to overstate his defects, whether literary or moral. 
Dr. Adams, Master of the College where Johnson was entered, 
assured Mr. Boswell that he attended his tutor's lectures, and 
other lectures of the College, " very regularly." 



36 Life of Samuel Johnson. 

love and respect for this tutor, "not for his Ht- 
erature, but for his worth." "Whenever," said 
he, " a young man becomes Jordan's pupil he 
becomes his son." 

Mr. Jordan having noticed one or two speci- 
mens of his pupil's poetical powers, requested 
him to translate Pope's Messiah into Latin 
verse as a Christmas exercise. He performed 
it with uncommon rapidity, and in so masterly 
a manner that he obtained great applause from 
it, which ever after kept him high in the esti- 
mation of his college, and, indeed, of all the 
University." * 

About a year after entering college Johnson 
began to be afflicted more deeply than before 
with a certain " morbid melancholy," which 
seems to have been constitutional with him. 
He not unfrequently felt himself " overwhelmed 
with a horrible hypochondria, with perpetual 
irritation, fretfulness, and impatience ; and with 

* This translation, it is said, was shown to Pope himself, 
who, having read it, returned it with this splendid encomium, 
" The writer of this poem will leave it a question for posterity 
whether his or mine be the original." 



Life of Samuel Johnson. 37 

a dejection, gloom, and despair which made 
existence misery. From this dismal malady 
he never afterward was perfectly relieved; and 
all his labors, and all his enjoyments, were 
but temporary interruptions of its baleful 
influence." * 

Johnson at first endeavored to overcome 
this terrible disorder by forcible exertions. He 
took long walks, and tried other expedients ; 
but all in vain. It is pleasant to reflect that 
amid all his suffering from this source his in- 
tellect remained always unclouded and vigorous. 
"Though he suffered severely from it, he was 
not, therefore, degraded. The powers of his 
great mind might be troubled, and their full 

* Let the young reader note this carefully, and receive in- 
struction. Here is a man of transcendent abilities, towering 
head and shoulders above ordinary mortals, yet carrying with 
him a life-long affliction of such a character that, so far as 
worldly happiness is concerned, he might gladly have ex- 
changed his wonderful powers for relief from such an incubus. 
So the great Apostle received subUme revelations, but the 
"thorn in the flesh" must accompany them; and the great 
Dispenser sets one thing over against another, to the end that 
"man may find nothing after hira." 



$8 Life of Samuel Johnson. 

exercise suspended, at times ; but the mind 
itself was ever entire." Further on the same 
writer adds, "Amidst the oppression and dis- 
traction of a disease which very few have felt 
in its full extent, but many have experienced in 
a lighter degree, Johnson, in his writings and 
in his conversation, never failed to display all 
the varieties of intellectual excellence." 

Johnson's youthful mind was early directed to 
religion. His mother was a religious woman, 
and was interested for the spiritual welfare of 
her son. Yet it does not appear that all her 
efforts for this object were of the most judi- 
cious character. As he grew up into youth, 
he, like thousands of other young people, 
acquired the habit of neglecting public wor- 
ship ; became, as he says, " a sort of lax talker 
against religion, for I did not much think against 
it ; and this lasted till I went to Oxford, where 
it would not be suffered." 

After entering college, however, he began 
to give more serious attention to religious 
things. A perusal of Law's " Serious Call to a 



Life of Samuel Johnson. 39 

Holy Life"* seems to have first led his mind 
to earnest meditation upon reUgion, and from 
this time it became the predominant object of 
his thoughts. 

Some additional notices of Johnson's college 
life are furnished us by Boswell and other 
writers. It appears that his particular courses 
of reading while at the University cannot be 
satisfactorily traced. He seems to have had 
but a slight taste for mathematics or the physi- 
cal sciences, while his pecuniary circumstances 
were such as seemed to exclude him from the 
learned professions. Hence his modes of read- 
ing and study were more or less irregular, and 
his habits desultory. At the same time, from 

* A book well adapted to induce thoughtfulness and serious- 
ness, and to impress the mind with the vanity of this world and 
the infinite superiority of eternal things. But it fails to present 
to the mquirer Christ, mercy, pardon, renewal, salvation, and the 
rejoicing of hope. " Law " is good, but we need Gospel also. 
Johnson read the "Serious Call," and his life-long rehgion was 
much seriousness and little hope. His contemporaries, the 
Wesleys, read the same book, and in the same University, and 
with the same effect until, hke ApoUos, they were taught the 
way of the Lord more perfectly ; and then they were lifted aloft 
in the glorious liberty of the sons of God. 



40 Life of Samuel Johnson. 

certain early notes of his, there is evidence 
that at various times he planned a methodical 
course of study, whether such a course were 
executed or not. At all events, it seems to 
be certain that Johnson, while in college, was 
a great reader, and this habit, acquired in 
early life, must have continued into riper years. 
Adam Smith, as quoted by Boswell, stated that , 
" Johnson knew more books than any man 
alive." " He had a peculiar facility in seizing 
at once what was valuable in any book, without 
submitting to the labor of perusing it from 
beginning to end." Hence he is said to have 
rarely read a book thoroughly. 

With all his eccentricities Johnson was, of 
course, popular among his fellow-students. 
Though depressed by poverty and irritated by 
disease, he was, nevertheless " a gay and frolic- 
some fellow," and maintained a genial and lively 
exterior.* All accounts agree, however, that 

* "Ah, sir," he says to Boswell, "I was mad and violent. 
It was bitterness which they mistook for frolic. I was miser- 
ably poor, and I thought to fight my way by my hterature and 
my wit, so I disregarded all power and all authority." 



Life of Samuel Johnson. 41 

he must have been a trial to the authorities of 
his college. ** He was generally seen lounging 
at the college-gate, with a circle of young 
students around him, whom he was entertain- 
ing with wit and keeping from their studies, if 
not stirring them up to rebellion against the 
college discipline, which, in his maturer years, 
he so much extolled." * 

It is painful to contemplate that a youth 
like Samuel Johnson should be compelled by 
poverty to relinquish the advantage of a com- 
plete academical education. The friend (Mr. 
Corbett) whom he had trusted for support had 
deceived him. His debts in college, though 
not great, were increasing, and his scanty re- 
mittances from Lichfield, which all along had 
been made with great difficulty, could be sup- 
plied no longer, his father having fallen into a 
state of insolvency. " Compelled, therefore, by 
irresistible necessity, he left the college in 

* Tet Johnson's record in college could not have been the 
meanest. Dr. Adams, who seems to have been his tutor during 
a part of his stay in college, remarked of him many years after- 
ward, "I was his nominal tutor, but he was above my mark." 



42 Life of Sanmel yohnson. 

autumn, 1731, without a degree, having been 
a member of it Httle more than three years." * 

Johnson now returned finally to his native 
city, Lichfield ; returned poor, and without 
knowing how he was to secure a livelihood. 
His father had become insolvent, and died in 
December of this same year. One hundred 
dollars fell to him at his father's decease, and 
in July following he made this entry in his 
diary : " I now see that I must make my own 
fortune. Meanwhile, let me take care that the 
powers of my mind be not debilitated by pov- 
erty, and that indigence do not force me into 
any criminal act." 

This was well said, and worthy of a strong 
young man of twenty-two years of age, and 
possessing a brave and true heart. 

* This last statement seems to be imperfect, as by repeated 
and protracted absences Johnson was actually in college much 
less than three years. 



Life of Samuel yohnsou. 43 



CHAPTER III. 

Thus we find Samuel Johnson as he is about 
commencing the world. He is of age, has just 
buried his father, who has left him but a slight 
pittance, and he is thrown upon his own re- 
sources. Yet these are neither few nor mean. 
He has tolerable health, splendid abilities, good 
education, a very considerable knowledge of 
books, and much general intelligence. It fur- 
ther appears that he is in good repute in his 
native town, and has access to the best families 
of the citj, thus contradicting the notion that 
he was never, until maturer years, familiar with 
genteel and good society. 

His first effort at bettering his circumstances 
seems to have been the acceptance of a situa- 
tion as usher, or subordinate teacher, of a 
school in Leicestershire. This position, how- 
ever, was from the first entirely distasteful to 



44 Life of Samuel yohnson. 

him. " One day contains the whole of my Hfe," 
is his expression for the dull sameness of his 
daily duties. He pronounced it '' as unvaried 
as the cuckoo's note ;" and " he did not know 
whether it was more disagreeable for him to 
teach or the boys to learn." Providence had 
evidently not designed Samuel Johnson for a 
school teacher. 

Added to Johnson's aversion to teaching, 
which rendered it but a painful drudgery, was 
an unhappy disagreement which arose between 
him and the patron of the school, by whom he 
seems to have been treated with great harsh- 
ness. Thus, after several months of suffering, 
he relinquished a situation " which, all his life 
afterward, he recollected with the strongest 
aversion, and even a degree of horror." 

The succeeding six months Johnson, by invi- 
tation, spent at Birmingham with Mr. Hector, 
one of the schoolmates of his boyhood, and who 
seems to have always cherished for him the 
highest respect. Here seems to have opened 
obscurely with him the literary career which 



Life of Samuel Johnson. 45 

subsequently grew to be so illustrious and suc- 
cessful. His first efforts were in the shape of 
a series of periodical essays, which he was 
employed to write for a newspaper of which a 
Mr. Warren was proprietor, and for which he 
probably received some pecuniary considera- 
tion. He also translated and abridged for Mr. 
Warren a French book entitled " A Voyage to 
Abyssinia," which was published, and for 
which he received the prodigious sum of five 
guineas ! 

Early the next year (1734) Johnson returned 
to Lichfield, his native town, and in August of 
that year, as an attempt to procure subsistence, 
he issued proposals for printing, by subscrip- 
tion, the later poems of Politian.* But the 
number of subscribers was not sufficient to 
authorize him to proceed, and the work never 
appeared, if, indeed, the manuscript was ever 
prepared. 

* An eminent Italian scholar and poet, who stood at the 
head of the Italian scholars that contributed to the revival of 
learning. He died at Florence, 1494. 



46 



Life of Smntiel yohnson. 




Returning, about this time, to Birmingham, 
he proposed to Mr. 
Cave, editor of the 
Gentleman's Maga- 
zine, to furnish him 
some Hterary assist- 
ance for the improve- 
ment of that pubhca- 
tion. It is not known 
that this proposal 
EDWARD CAVE. resulted in any thing. 

Also, about the same time, one of his old 
friends solicited for him the mastership of a 
school in Warwickshire. This, too, was a 
failure, as will appear from the response to the 
letter of solicitation, a part of which is as 
follows : 

"Sir: I was favoured with yours of y^ 13th 
inst. in due time ; but deferred answering it 
til now, it takeing up some time to informe the 
ffoeofees* [of the school] of the contents thereof; 



* Corporate Trustees. 



Life of Samuel Johnson. 47 

and before they would return an answer, de- 
sired some time to make enquiry of y^ caracter 
of Mr. Johnson ; who all agree that he is an ex- 
cellent scholar, and upon that account deserves 
much better than to be the schoolmaster of 
Solihull. But then he has the caracter of being 
a very haughty, ill-natured gent, and y* he has 
such a way of distorting his fface (w^' though 
he can't help) y® gent, think it- may effect some 
young ladds ; for these two reasons he is not 
approved on." 

For similar reasons he also failed to obtain 
the situation of assistant teacher in a school at 
Brewood. The master, Mr. Budworth, lamented 
the necessity of declining to engage him " from 
an apprehension that the paralytic affection 
under which Johnson labored through life might 
become the object of imitation or ridicule 
among his pupils." 

In the midst of all these discouragements, and 
notwithstanding his destitute circumstances, 
Johnson suddenly plunged into matrimony. 



48 Life of SamiLel yohnson. 

He married a widow lady, Mrs. Porter, who was 
full twenty years his senior.* 

It appears that their ride to the church to be 
married was performed on horseback ; and 
from Johnson himself we have the following 
sketch of the journey : 

" She had read the old romances, and had 
got into her head the fantastical notion that a 
woman of spirit should use her lover like a dog. 
So, sir, at first she told me that I rode too fast, 
and that she could not keep up with me ; and, 
when I rode a little slower, she passed me, and 
complained that I lagged behind. I was not 
to be made the slave of caprice, and I resolved 
to begin as I meant to end. I, therefore, 
pushed on briskly, till I was fairly out of her 
sight. The road lay between two hedges, so I 
was sure she could not miss it ; and I con- 

* Johnson became the fervent admirer of Mrs. Porter 
soon after her husband's death ; while on her part, she is 
said to have been so much charmed by his conversation that 
she overlooked all external disadvantages, and said to her 
daughter, " This is the most sensible man that I ever saw in 
my life." 



Life of Samuel Johnson. 49 

trived that she should not soon come up with 
me. When she did, I observed her to be in 
tears." 

"A singular beginning," says Boswell, "of 
connubial felicity. But there is no doubt that 
Johnson, though he thus showed a manly firm- 
ness, proved a most affectionate and indulgent 
husband to the last moment of Mrs. Johnson's 
life." The marriage occurred on the 9th of 
July, 1736, the bridegroom and bride being 
respectively twenty-seven and forty-seven years 
of age. 



50 Life of Savmel JoJinson. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Immediately after his marriage Johnson at- 
tempted to estabhsh a private academy in the 
neighborhood of his native city, and in the 
Gentleman's Magazine for 1736 appears the 
following advertisement : 

"At Edial, near Lichfield, in Staffordshire, 
young gentlemen are boarded and taught the 
Latin and Greek languages, by Samuel Johnson." 

Three pupils only, one of whom was the 
celebrated David Garrick, were placed under 
his care, and the school survived but about a 
year and a half. "As yet his name had nothing 
of that celebrity which afterward commanded 
the highest attention and respect of mankind. 
Had such an advertisement appeared after the 
publication of his ' London,' or his * Rambler,' 
or his ' Dictionary,' how it would have burst 
upon the world ! With what eagerness would 
the great and the wealthy have embraced an 



L^e of S anil t el Johnson. 51 

opportunity of putting their sons under the 
learned tuition of Samuel Johnson ! The truth, 
however, is, that he was not so well qualified 
for being a teacher of elements, and a conductor 
in learning by regular gradations, as men of in- 
ferior powers of mind." * " While we acknowl- 
edge the justness of Thomson's beautiful remark, 

* Delightful task ! to rear the tender thought, 
To teach the young idea how to shoot ! ' 

we must consider that this delight is per- 
ceptible only by a mind at ease, a mind at 
once calm and clear ; but that a mind gloomy 
and impetuous, like that of Johnson, cannot be 
fixed for any length of time in minute attention, 
and must be so frequently irritated by unavoid- 
able slowness and error in the advances of 

* To some all this may appear paradoxical, while yet it is 
often reahzed as true. A clear perception of the pupil's wants, 
joined with a profound sympathy with his difficulties, and a 
patience and perseverance that will accompany him from step 
to step up the multitudinous grades of progress, all combined 
with strong and undying benevolence — such are the essential 
qualities of a true teacher; and some of these were lacking 
in Johnson with all his greatness, and, perhaps, in consequence 
of that greatness. 



52 Life of Saimtel Johnson. 

scholars, as to perform the duty with httle 
pleasure to the teacher, and no great advantage 
to the pupils. Good temper is a most essential 
requisite in a preceptor." 

During the existence of the school Johnson 
commenced his tragedy, Irene; and early in 
March, 1737, at twenty-eight years of age, he 
determined to try his fortune in London, as 
presenting a more ample and inviting field for 
effort and success in a literary life. His pupil, 
David Garrick, accompanied him with a view 
of completing his education for the profession 
of Law. On this, his first visit to London, 
Johnson seems to have left his wife at Lichfield. 
His purse was slender, yet he knew how to live 
cheaply. He took private lodgings, and obtained 
his meals at what would now be termed a 
restaurant. '^ I dined very well," he says, " for 
eightpence, with very good company, at the 
Pine-Apple in New-street, just by.* Several 

* He seems not always to have fared so well, for he after- 
ward asserted to a friend that for a considerable time he sub- 
sisted upon the scanty pittance of six and a quarter cents a da3^ 



Life of Sanmel Johnson. 53 

of them had traveled. They expected to meet 
every day, but did not know one another's 
names. It used to cost the rest a shilHng, for 
they drank wine ; but I had a cut of meat for 
sixpence and bread for a penny, and gave the 
waiter a penny, so that I was quite well served ; 
nay, better than the rest, for they gave the 
waiter nothing." 

Thus Johnson's life in London was, for the 
present, a life of obscurity, there being but a 
family or two of any distinction to which he 
enjoyed access. One of these was that of Mr. 
Henry Hervey, at whose house he was fre- 
quently entertained, and had opportunity of 
meeting genteel company. During this time 
he seems to have prosecuted his tragedy, Irene. 
He also proposed to a publisher a new English 
translation of the History of the Council of 
Trent,* together with notes from a French 
translation of the same work. 

* This famous Council was convoked bj Pope Paul III. in 
1545, and closed, after numerous interruptions, in 1563. Its 
professed object was to reform ecclesiastical abuses, but its 
real purpose was to counteract and crush the Reformation. 
4 



54 Life of Samuel Johnsoit. 

After three or four months' absence Johnson 
returned home to Lichfield, where he finished 
his tragedy, Irene. At the end of three months 
more he returned to London, accompanied this 
time by Mrs. Johnson. They took lodgings in 
Woodstock-street ; but what was their manner 
of living at this period does not clearly appear. 
He at once endeavored to bring upon the stage 
his tragedy, but could find no managers that 
would accept it ; nor was it brought forward 
until a dozen years afterward, when his friend, 
David Garrick, produced it. He soon became 
a regular contributor to the Gentleman's Mag- 
azine, under the editorship of Mr. Edward Cave, 
and his admirable essays contributed greatly 
to the celebrity of that periodical, and seem 
to have secured to their author a tolerable 
livelihood. 

"Thus was Johnson employed during some 
of the best years of his life as a mere literary 
laborer — * for gain, not glory ' — solely to obtain 
an honest support." " But what first displayed 
his transcendent powers, and gave the world 



Life of Samuel yohnson. 



57 



assurance of the man, was his ' London,' a 
poem in imitation of the Third Satire of Juve- 
nal ; which came out in May, this year, and 
burst forth with a splendor the rays of which 
will forever encircle his name." 

It is said that Johnson offered this poem to 
several London booksellers, none of whom 
would purchase it. 
But Mr. Robert 
Dodsley had the 
capacity to discern 
the singular merit of 
the poem, and at 
once bargained for 
the copyright, for 
which he paid the 
author ten guineas. 

This poem seems to have been a success, and 
attracted much attention and admiration. At 
Oxford every body was delighted with it, and 
pronounced the unknown author " greater even 
than Pope." General Oglethorpe, a man emi- 
nent for learning and taste, was one of the 




ROBERT DODSLEY. 



58 Life of Samuel yohisoti. 

warmest patrons of the poem, and Pope himself 
approved it. "The whole of the poem," writes 
Boswell, " is eminently excellent ; and there 
are in it such proofs of a knowledge of the 
world, and of a mature acquaintance with life, 
as cannot be contemplated without wonder, 
when we consider that he was then only in his 
twenty-ninth year, and had yet been so little in 
the busy haunts of men." 

Thus Johnson began to arise into fame. Yet 
he "felt the hardships of writing for bread." 
Hence he reluctantly turned his attention again 
to the idea of teaching, with a view of securing 
a sure though modest income for life. Accord- 
ingly, an offer of the mastership of a school was 
made to him provided he could procure the 
degree of Master of Arts. Application was 
made by some friends to Oxford, and also to 
Dublin, in both cases without success. " It 
was, perhaps, no small disappointment to John- 
son that this respectable appHcation had not 
the desired effect ; yet how much reason has 
there been, both for himself and his country, 



Life of Samuel Johnson. 59 

to rejoice that it did not succeed ; as he might 
probably have wasted in obscurity those hours 
in which he afterward produced his incompa- 
rable works." 

It appears that, about this time, he also seri- 
ously considered the question of entering the- 
profession of law. The drudgery of authorship, 
it would seem, had already become irksome 
to him, and he longed to escape from it to 
something more congenial as well as more prof- 
itable. " I am," he says to Dr. Adams, " a 
total stranger to these studies, but whatever is 
a profession, and maintains numbers, must be 
within the reach of common abilities, and some 
degree of industry." It was the opinion of his 
friends that could he have entered the profes- 
sion of law he would certainly have risen to 
great eminence; "for," says Dr. Adams, ''he 
would have brought to his profession a rich 
store of various knowledge, an uncommon 
acuteness, and a command of language in which 
few could have equaled, and none have sur- 
passed him." But at the door of the law, as 



6o Life of Saimiel Johnson. 

well as of school keeping, stood the same 
impassable barrier, the want of a Master's 
degree.* 

* All this sounds strangely to us who are accustomed to 
observe the freedom with which academic degrees are now con- 
ferred, especially in our own country. Here is a man who 
spent three years in Oxford University, and was distinguished 
there, but whom poverty compelled to retire without his first 
degree ; who had spent ten years subsequently in literary pur- 
suits; had acquired literary fame that had reached to Oxford 
itself; and yet it seemed too much to tender to this talented 
but indigent scholar the moderate honor of Master of Arts. 



Life of Samuel yohnson, 6 1 



CHAPTER V. 

Thus we see that Johnson was driven by stern 
necessity to persevere in the drudgery of writ- 
ing, and writing for bread. 

His connection with the Gentleman's Maga- 
zine seems to have been decidedly advantage- 
ous to that enterprise, contributing greatly to 
its attractiveness and popularity. For three 
years, about this period, he sustained the de- 
partment of " Parliamentary Debates " in that 
magazine. This department seems to have 
been managed in the curious manner following. 
It appears that Mr. Cave, the editor, had an 
understanding with the door-keepers of Parlia- 
ment, so that himself, and persons under his 
employ, gained admittance to the galleries, and 
listened to the discussions of the members. 
" They brought away," says Johnson, *' the sub- 
ject of discussion, the names of the speakers, 
the sides they took, and the order in which 



62 Life of Samuel Johnson. 

they rose, together with notes of the arguments 
advanced in the course of the debate. The 
whole was afterward communicated to me, and 
I composed the speeches in the form which 
they now have in the ParHamentary Debates." 

Such was the process, as detailed by John- 
son himself, of producing, or rather of manufac- 
turing, the parliamentary speeches. Of course, 
in the hands of an artist like Johnson, these 
speeches, as they appeared in the Magazine, 
would assume oftentimes a shape much superior 
to that in which they were originally delivered. 

Strange to say, this process does not seem to 
have been generally understood, even among 
the more intelligent. Thus, in a certain com- 
pany of gentlemen and scholars at which John- 
son was present, a speech of Mr. Pitt was the 
subject of conversation. One of the party. Dr. 
Francis, remarked that the said speech was the 
best he had ever read. He added that he had 
employed eight years of his life in the study of 
Demosthenes, and finished a translation of that 
celebrated orator, with all the decorations of 



Life of Samuel Johnson. 63 

style and language within the reach of his 
capacity ; but he had met with nothing equal 
to the speech above mentioned. Many others 
of the company remembered readily the speech, 
and some passages from it were recited with 
the approbation and applause of all present. 
Johnson, meantime, was silent, and when the 
warmth of praise subsided, he coolly addressed 
the party, saying, " That speech I wrote in a 
garret in Exeter-street." * The company were 
of course thunderstruck, and stared at each 
other with utter amazement. And when Dr. 
Francis asked him how the speech could have 
been written by him, he explained the process 
as above quoted. Upon this '' the company be- 
stowed lavish encomiums on Johnson." One 
in particular praised his impartiality, observing 
that he dealt out reason and eloquence with an 
equal hand to both parties. " That is not quite 

* When in our schoolboy days we were declaiming this 
speech, and, with all our sarcastic powers, were descanting 
upon "the atrocious crime of being a young man," who of us 
dreamed that we were repeating the words of Samuel Johnson 
instead of those of William Pitt ! 



64 Life of Samuel Johnson. 

true," said Johnson ; " I saved appearances tol- 
erably well, but I took care that the Whig dogs 
should not have the best of it." 

In fact, it would appear that, in not a 
few instances, these parliamentary speeches 
were " manufactured out of whole cloth ;" the 
writer knowing only the speaker, the ques- 
tion at issue, and the side of the question 
adopted. 

It should be added here that this practice, 
while it brought to the Gentleman's Magazine 
a large increase of popularity and circulation, 
and to Johnson himself pecuniary recompense 
and general applause, yet "gratified him but 
little. On the contrary, he disapproved the 
deceit he was compelled to practice. His 
notions of morality were so strict that he would 
scarcely allow the violation of truth even in 
trivial instances." It is pleasant to add that 
he was not easy till he had disclosed the 
deception. 

During the years 1742 and 1743 Johnson's 
pen was busy, and numerous productions were 



Life of Samuel Johnson. 65 

the result. In 1 7/^4 he wrote the " Life of 
Richard Savage ;" * " a man," writes Boswell, 
" of whom it is difficult to speak impartially, 
without wondering that he was for some time 
the intimate companion of Johnson ; for his 
character was marked by profligacy, insolence, 
and ingratitude. Yet, as he undoubtedly had 
a warm and vigorous, though unregulated 
mind — had seen life in all its varieties — had 
been much in the company of the statesmen 
and wits of his time — he could communicate 
to Johnson an abundant supply of such 
materials as his philosophical curiosity most 
eagerly desired. And as Savage's misfortunes 
and misconduct had reduced him to the lowest 
state of wretchedness as a writer for bread, his 

* Sir Joshua Reynolds, lighting upon this book, and ignorant 
of its authorship, "began to read it while he was standing with 
his arm leaning against a chimney-piece. It seized his attention 
so strongly that not being able to lay down the book till he 
had finished it, when he attempted to move he found his arm 
totally benumbed." Although eminent as a work of art, it was 
written with extraordinary dispatch. Said Johnson, " I wrote 
forty-eight of the printed octavo pages of the life of Savage at 
a sitting; but then I sat up all night." 



66 Life of Samuel Johnson. 

visits to St. John's Gate naturally brought them 
together." 

Thus these two men, so very diverse in 
character, yet sympathized in some points, as, 
for example, in using their pens for subsistence, 
and in their extreme poverty. For it would 
seem that, about this time, the pecuniary cir- 
cumstances of Johnson were at their lowest 
point. " Indeed," remarks one writer, " his 
personal history is, about this period, a blank ; 
hidden, it is to be feared, in the obscurity of 
indigence ; and \ve cannot but think with a 
tender commiseration of the distress of such 
a man, rendered more poignant by being 
shared with a woman whom he so tenderly 
loved." 

His appearance was frequently so shabby 
that he did not consider himself presentable in 
companies of friends to which he was now and 
then invited. " It is melancholy to reflect," says 
Boswell, "that Johnson and Savage were some- 
times in such extreme indigence that they could 
not pay for a lodging ; so that they have wan- 



Life of Sanmel yohnson. 6 J 

dered together, whole nights, in the streets. 
Yet in these ahiiost incredible scenes of dis- 
tress, we may suppose that Savage mentioned 
many of the anecdotes with which Johnson 
afterward enriched the lives of his unhappy 
companion, and those of other poets." 

The reader will not fail to ask where amid 
all this destitution was Johnson's wife } There 
seems much uncertainty in respect to her situa- 
tion during this dark period of her husband's 
affairs. Straitened circumstances may have 
induced her to leave London, for a time, and 
return to Lichfield ; or there may have been 
some other arrangement. The record seems 
partially confused and silent. 

Also, there is much silence touching Johnson 
himself during 1745 and 1746, the two years 
succeeding his publication of the Life of Savage. 
The emanations from his pen seem to have 
been few and slight, and, during these tv/o 
years, it is indeed curious to remark that " his 
literary career appears to have been almost 
totally suspended." Yet it was the opinion of 



68 Life of Samuel Johnson. 

Boswell that during this protracted interval he 
was making preparation for undertaking his 
great philological work, which was to occupy 
him so long, and waft him, in the sequel, to 
undying fame. 



Life of Samuel Johnsoit. 



69 



CHAPTER VI. 

At thirty-eight years of age Johnson com- 
menced his Dictionary of the Enghsh Language. 
The plan or prospectus of the work was pub- 
lished beforehand, and dedicated or addressed to 
Lord Chesterfield, 
who had expressed 
himself as warmly 
favorable to its suc- 
cess. A perusal of 
this plan clearly im- 
presses us that John- 
son was not unaware 
of the magnitude 
and difficulties of the chesterfield. 

work he was was about to undertake. The 
following brief extract reveals to us a glimpse 
of some of those difficulties he apprehended, 
as well as affords a tolerably fair specimen of 
his general style of composition : 




yo Life of Samuel JoJinson. 

" I cannot hope, in the warmest moments, to 
preserve so much caution through so long a 
work as not often to sink into neghgence, or to 
obtain so much knowledge of all its parts as 
not frequently to fall by ignorance. I expect 
that sometimes the desire of accuracy will 
urge me to superfluities, and sometimes the 
fear of prolixity betray me to omissions ; that 
in the extent of such variety I shall be often 
bewildered ; and in the mazes of such intricacy 
be frequently entangled ; that, in one part, re- 
finement will be subtilized beyond exactness, 
and evidence dilated in another beyond perspi- 
cuity. Yet I do not despair of approbation 
from those who, knowing the uncertainty of 
conjecture, the scantiness of knowledge, the 
fallibility of memory, and the unsteadiness of 
attention, can compare the causes of error with 
the means of avoiding it, and the extent of art 
with the capacity of man." 

Seven London publishers contracted with 
Johnson for the execution of this great work, 
and the stipulated price was $7,875. 



Life of Samtiel yohnso7i. yi 

For the mechanical part of the work six 
amanuenses were employed. He had an upper 
room fitted up like a counting-house, in which 
all his copyists were assembled, and where 
they executed their several tasks as they were 
assigned to them. The work proceeded nearly 
as follows : 

1. The words of the new Dictionary were 
taken partly from other Dictionaries, and partly 
supplied by the author himself. 

2. These words were written down in a 
column, with sufficient space left between them. 

3. Then the etymology, definition, and vari- 
ous significations of each word were given in 
writing to the amanuenses to be copied in their 
places. 

4. The authorities for the meaning of the 
words were copied from the books themselves, 
the passages to be copied being marked with a 
pencil. 

Johnson " is now to be considered as tugging 

at his oar, as engaged in a steady, continued 

course of occupation, sufficient to employ all 
5 



72 Life of Samuel Johnson. 

his time for some years, and which was the 
best preventive of that constitutional melan- 
choly which was ever lurking about him, ready 
to trouble his quiet." 

To alleviate the drudgery of continuous labor 
such as detailed above, Johnson amused him- 
self occasionally with literary exercises of an 
entirely different character. He also instituted 
a Club, comprising nine or ten persons of dif- 
ferent professions. The purpose of this Club, 
or society, was literary discussions. " Thither 
he constantly resorted, and, with a disposition 
to please and be pleased, would .pass those 
hours in a free and unrestrained interchange of 
sentiments, which otherwise had been spent at 
home in painful reflection." It may readily be 
supposed that in these meetings Johnson was 
the prominent character. Here he "■ talked his 
best," and disputed to his heart's content, and 
not unfrequently contended for victory as well 
as for truth. Hence he would not hesitate to 
express contrary opinions, at different times, 
on the same topic, and delighted to contradict 



Life of SaimLcl yohnson. 73 

self-evident propositions. Sometimes the dis- 
cussions would take the shape of mirthful con- 
versation, in which Johnson, in his lucid and 
genial intervals, shone conspicuously. "■ He 
was a great contributor to the mirth of conver- 
sation by the many witty sayings he uttered, 
and the many excellent stories which his 
memory had treasured up, and which he would 
on occasion relate. ... In the talent oi humor 
there hardly ever was his equal. By this he 
was enabled to give to any relation that re- 
quired it the graces and aids of expression, and 
to discriminate with the nicest exactness the 
characters of those whom it concerned." In 
fact, some of his friends, well qualified to 
judge, affirm that with all his great powers of 
mind, wit and humor were his most shining 
talents, and were at once rich and apparently 
inexhaustible. 

Also, during the progress of his Dictionary, 
Johnson published " The Vanity of Human 
Wishes," being the " Tenth Satire of Juvenal 
Imitated." 



74 Life of Samuel yoJinson. 

This poem, however, seems to have been 
written in the year preceding the commence- 
ment of the Dictionary, and was produced with 
great rapidity. One day he is said to have 
composed seventy Hnes of it without touching 
pen to paper till all were finished. Indeed, 
this appears to have been his general habit 
of composing. " His defect of sight rendered 
writing and written corrections troublesome, 
and he, therefore, exercised his memory where 
others would have employed pen and paper." 

In this book some of the more prominent 
disappointments of men are vividly pictured ; 
and when Johnson was one day reading in the 
presence of a few friends his sketch of a scholar, 
with the various obstructions thrown in his 
way to fortune and to fame, he burst into a 
passion of tears. Doubtless he deeply knew 
whereof he was writing when he admonished 
the scholar that even amid the selectest advan- 
tages he should 

"Yet hope not life from grief or danger free, 
Nor think the doom of man reversed for thee : 



Life of Samuel yohnson. 75 

Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes, 
And pause awhile from letters, to be wise ; 
There mark what ills the scholar's life assail, 
Toil, envy, want, the patron and the jail. 
See nations, slowly wise, and meanly just, 
To buried merit raise the tardy bust. 
If dreams yet flatter, once again attend, 
Hear Lydiat's* life, and Gahleo'sf end." 

It was about this time that his tragedy, 
" Irene," written, as we have seen, about a 
dozen years before, was brought upon the stage 
by his friend, David Garrick, the famous actor. 
Considered as a poem, this tragedy " is entitled 
to the praise of superior excellence. Analyzed 
into parts, it will furnish a rich store of noble 
sentiments, fine imagery, and beautiful lan- 
guage ; but it is deficient in pathos, in that 
delicate power of touching the human feelings, 
which is the principal end of the drama." 

It seems to have needed considerable re- 
vision and alteration to render it suitable for 
the stage. Johnson was greatly opposed to 

* An unsuccessful writer and scholar of the 11th century. 
f Galileo spent the last years of his life as a sort of prisoner 
under the ban of the Inquisition. 



;6 



Life of Samuel yoJinson. 




DAVID GARRICK. 



this process with his tragedy, and so violent 
was the dispute between himself and Garrick 
touching this matter that the latter was obliged 
to apply for the interposition of a common 
friend. Johnson, at first very obstinate, yet 
submitted at length to the requisite changes. 

It would seem that the success of this tragedy 
was only tolerable. It was much applauded 
the first night, and the zeal of Mr. Garrick 



Life of Samuel Johnson. 77 

sustained it through nine nights, three of 
which were benefit nights for the author, 
and yielded him about $1,000, besides $500 
which he received for the copyright. 

Thus, notwithstanding the tragedy's indiffer- 
ent success upon the stage, it proved, however, 
no mean venture for its author, and the amounts 
he received " were, at the time, large sums to 
Dr. Johnson." 



78 Life of Samtiel yohnson. 



CHAPTER VII. 

In 1750, and while in the midst of his Diction- 
ary labors, Johnson instituted a periodical paper 
which he entitled " The Rambler." In this 
paper *' he came forth in the character for 
which he was eminently qualified — a majestic 
teacher of moral and religious wisdom." * The 
spirit with which he undertook this new enter- 
prise may be seen in the following prayer 
which he composed and offered on the oc- 
casion : 

" Almighty God, the giver of all good things, 
without whose help all labor is ineffectual, and 
without whose grace all wisdom is folly, grant, 
I beseech thee, that in this undertaking thy 
Holy Spirit may not be withheld from me, 
but that I may promote thy glory, and the 
salvation of myself and others. Grant this, O 

* The sequel will show that this statement of Mr. Boswell is 
to be taken with some important exceptions. 



Life of Samuel Jolmson. 79 

Lord, for the sake of thy Son, Jesus Christ. 
Amen." * 

This periodical commenced its existence in 
March, 1750,! and was issued semi-weekly, 

* Is not this a worthy example, especially for a Christian 
author when entering upon a new literary enterprise ? Do not 
all such need extra wisdom and skill ? and who may guide 
them to great and distinguished success hke " The Father of 
Lights? " " If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God." 

\ It was near this time, and when Johnson was about forty 
years of age, that the following curious description of him came 
from the pen of Rev. Dr. Dodd, who was some years after- 
ward convicted of forgery and executed : 

"I spent yesterday afternoon with Johnson, the celebrated 
author of " The Rambler," who is, of all others, the oddest and 
most peculiar fellow I ever saw. He is six feet high, has a 
violent convulsion in his head, and his eyes are distorted. He 
speaks roughly and loud, listens to no man's opinions, thor- 
oughly pertinacious of his own. Good sense flows from him 
in all he utters, and he seems possessed of a prodigious fund 
of knowledge, which he is not at all reserved in communicating ; 
but in a manner so obstinate, ungenteel, and boorish as renders 
it disagreeable and unsatisfactory. In short, it is impossible 
for words to describe him. He seems often inattentive to 
what passes in company, and then looks like a person pos- 
sessed by some superior spirit. I have been reflecting on 
him ever since I saw hmi. He is a man of most universal 
and surpassing genius, but, in himself, particular beyond 
expression." 



8o 



Life of Samuel yohnson. 



Tuesday and Saturday, through exactly two 
years. Of these two hundred and eight essays, 
all but four, and a part of another, were written 
by Johnson himself; and it is testified that 
" many of these discourses, which we should 
suppose had been labored with all the slow 
attention of literary leisure, were written in 
haste as the moment pressed, without even 
being read over by him before they were 




SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 



printed. The fine " Rambler " on Procrastination 
was hastily composed in Sir Joshua Reynold's 
parlor, while the boy waited to carry it to the 



Life of Samuel Johnson. 8i 

press ; and numberless are the instances of his 
writing under the immediate pressure of impor- 
tunity or distress. . . . Sir Joshua Reynolds 
once asked him by what means he had attained 
his extraordinary accuracy and flow of language. 
He told him that he had early laid it down as a 
fixed rule to do his best on every occasion, and 
in every company ; to impart whatever he knew 
in the most forcible language he could put it 
in ; and that, by constant practice, and never 
suflering any careless expressions to escape 
him, or attempting to deliver his thoughts with- 
out arranging them in the clearest manner, it 
became habitual to him." 

As '' The Rambler " was the work of one man, 
there was, of course, much uniformity of style 
and thought — a circumstance that rendered it 
less popular than if it had been more distin- 
guished by the charms of variety. Hence, it 
gained slowly upon the public at large. " I 
have never," he writes in the closing number, 
" been much a favorite of the public, nor can 
boast that, in the progress of my undertaking, 



82 Life of Samuel yohnson. 

I have been animated by the rewards of the 
Hberal, the caresses of the great, or the praises 
of the eminent." 

Yet "The Rambler" was not without abundant 
testimonials of a highly favorable character, and 
from sources of the greatest respectability. "It 
increased in fame as in age. Soon after its first 
folio edition was concluded, it was published in 
six duodecimo volumes ; and its author lived to 
see ten numerous editions of it in London, 
besides those of Ireland and Scotland." 

The date of the last number of " The Ram- 
bler" was March 14, 1752. 

Three days afterward Mrs. Johnson died, 
at the age of 63 years. Notwithstanding the 
great disparity in the ages of Johnson and his 
wife — she being his senior by twenty years — 
and although her personal attractions could 
never have been deemed otherwise than slender, 
yet she appears to have been loved by her hus- 
band with a deep and sincere affection, and in 
her death " he suffered a loss which there can 
be no doubt affected him with the deepest dis- 



Life of Samuel yohnsoit. 83 

tress." " That his love for his wife was of the 
most ardent kind, and, during the long period 
of fifty years, was unimpaired by the lapse of 
time, is evident from various passages in the 
series of his ' Prayers and Meditations.' ' He 
remained a widower till his death. 

From the fruits of his various literary labors, 
Johnson seems to have now, at the age of forty- 
three, attained, for a time, to comfortable cir- 
cumstances. Hence, he provided for himself a 
man-servant — a colored man, who had been 
brought up as a slave from Jamaica, and after- 
ward emancipated. His name was Francis 
Barber ; and he possessed fair intelligence for 
one of his class, and, with two brief intervals, 
remained with Johnson during the life of the 
latter. With improved circumstances, his circle 
of friends had, of course, enlarged, and, at this 
time, had become " extensive and various far 
beyond what has been generally imagined." 
" His acquaintance was now sought by persons 
of the first eminence in literature, and his house, 
in respect of the conversations there, became 



84 



X^ife of Samuel JoJmson. 



an academy. Many persons were desirous of 
adding him to the number of their friends." 




JOHNSON AND BARBER. 



Amid all this increasing prosperity, Johnson 
seems not to have relaxed his literary diligence 
and pursuits. One year after "The Rambler" 
was concluded several gentlemen established a 
similar periodical, entitled "The Adventurer." 
Of the one hundred and thirty-eight numbers 
comprised in this work Johnson wrote about 
thirty ; receiving two guineas each, which was 
probably the compensation awarded to the other 



Life of Samuel yohnson. 85 

writers. Johnson's papers in " The Adventurer " 
are quite similar to those in " The Rambler." 

Meanwhile he continued to prosecute vigor- 
ously his great work. " The conclusion, and 
also the perfection of his Dictionary, were ob- 
jects from which his attention was not to be 
diverted. The avocations he gave way to were 
such only as, when complied with, served to 
invigorate his mind to the performance of his 
engagements to his employers and the public, 
and hasten the approach of the day that was to 
reward his labor with applause." 



86 



Life of Samuel yohnson. 



CHAPTER VIII. 








JOHxX .SON'S IIO:^IESTEAD. 



It is pleasant to contemplate Johnson as a 
religious man, amid all his greatness in genius 
and literature. As he enters upon the year 1753 
he records in his diary the following prayer : 



Life of Samuel yohnso7i. Zj 

" Almighty God, who hast continued my life 
to this day, grant that, by the assistance of thy 
Holy Spirit, I may improve the time which 
thou shalt grant me, to my eternal salvation. 
Make me to remember to thy glory, thy judg- 
ments, and thy mercies. Make me to consider 
the loss of my wife, whom thou hast taken from 
me, that it may dispose me, by thy grace, to 
lead the residue of my life in thy fear. Grant 
this, O Lord, for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen." 

In April of this year Johnson began the 
second volume of his Dictionary, "room being 
left," he says, "for preface, grammar, and his- 
tory, none of them yet begun." 

During this and the following year his atten- 
tion was doubtless mainly given to the Diction- 
ary, no publication of his being traceable in 
this interval, save his numbers of " The Adven- 
'turer," and "The Life of Edward Cave," pub- 
lished in the Gentleman's Magazine. As the 
Dictionary approached its completion, we notice 
the breach which occurred between Johnson 

and Lord Chesterfield. It has already been 
6 



88 Life of Samuel Johnson. 

observed that the " plan " of the Dictionary iiad 
been first prepared by Johnson and dedicated 
to Chesterfield, who had, in the outset, ex- 
pressed great favor for the enterprise and confi- 
dent hopes for its success. As, however, the 
gre^t undertaking was commenced and prose- 
cuted with patient labor for years, Lord Ches- 
terfield, meanwhile, seems to have maintained 
entire silence in reference to it, and to have 
treated the enterprise and its author with sheer 
neglect. All this continued until the great 
work was near its completion, when Chester- 
field, hoping and expecting, it is said, to be 
honored by the dedication of the Dictionary as 
well as the plan to himself, aroused from the 
neglect and indifference with which he had 
treated Johnson, and endeavored to conciliate 
him by the publication of two papers in recom- 
mendation of the forthcoming work, as well as 
highly complimentary to its author.* 

* In one of these papers his Lordship writes, "It must be 
owned that our language is, at present, in a state of anarchy. . . . 
Good order and authority are now necessary. But where shall 



Life of Samuel Johnson. 89 

But the courtly device failed to produce its 
effect. Johnson " despised the honeyed words." 
" Sir," said he to one of his friends, " after 
making great professions, he had, for many 
years, taken no notice of me ; but when my 
Dictionary was coming out, he fell a scribbling 
in * The World ' about it. Upon which I wrote 
him a letter expressed in civil terms, but such 
as might show him that I did not mind what 
he said or wrote, and that I had done with 
him." 

As this letter is brief and highly character- 
istic, we give it entire : 

" To THE Earl of Chesterfield : 

" My Lord : I have been lately informed by 
the proprietor of ' The World,' that two papers, 

we find tbem, and, at the same time, the obedience due to 
them ? We must have recourse to the old Eoman expedient in 
tiaies of confusion, and choose a dictator. Upon this principle 
I give my vote for Mr. Johnson to fill that great and arduous 
post ; and I hereby declare that I make a total surrender of all 
my rights and privileges in the Enghsh language, as a free- 
born British subject, to the said Mr. Johnson during the term 
of his dictatorship." 



90 Life of Samuel yohnson. 

in which my Dictionary is recommended to the 
public, were written by your lordship. To be 
so distinguished is an honor, which, being very 
little accustomed to favors from the great, I 
know not well ^ow to receive, or in what terms 
to acknowledge. 

"When, upon some slight encouragement, I 
first visited your Lordship, I was overpowered, 
like the rest of mankind, by the enchantment 
of your address, and could not forbear to wish 
that I might boast myself Le vainqneiir du vain- 
quer de la terre ; that I might obtain that re- 
gard for which I saw the world contending ; 
but I found my attendance so little encouraged, 
that neither pride nor modesty would suffer me 
to continue it. When I had once addressed 
your Lordship in public, I had exhausted all the 
art of pleasing which a retired and uncourtly 
scholar can possess. I had done all that I 
could ; and no man is well pleased to have his 
all neglected, be it ever so little. 

" Seven years, my lord, have now past since 
I waited in your outward rooms, or was re- 




Johnson Repulsed from Chesterfield's Door. 



Life of Samtiel Johnson. 93 

pulsed from your door ; during which time I 
have been pushing on my work through diffi- 
culties, of which it is useless to complain, 
and have brought it at last to the verge of 
publication without one act of assistance,* one 
word of encouragement, or one smile of favor. 
Such treatment I did not expect, for I never 
had a patron before. 

..." Is not a patron, my Lord, one who 
looks with unconcern on a man struggling for 
life in the water, and, when he has reached 
ground, encumbers him with help .-* The notice 
which you have been pleased to take of my 
labors had it been early, had been kind ; but it 
has been delayed till I am indifferent, and can- 
not enjoy it ; till I am solitary,! and cannot 
impart it ; till I am known, and do not want it. 
I hope it is no very cynical asperity not to 
confess obligations where no benefit has been 

* But Dr. Johnson acknowledged that he did once receive 
from Lord Chesterfield the sum of $50. If so, though it were 
but a small amount, it should have prevented the assertion in 
the text. 

f An allusion to the loss of his wife. 



94 Life of Samuel JoJmsofi. 

received, or to be unwilling that the public 
should consider me as owing that to a patron 
which Providence has enabled me to do for 
myself. 

"Having carried on my work thus far with 
so little obligation to any favorer of learning, 
I shall not be disappointed though I should 
conclude it, if less be possible, with less ; for 
I have been long wakened from that dream 
of hope in which I once boasted myself with 
so much exultation. 

" My Lord, your Lordship's most humble, 
most obedient servant, Sam. Johnson." 

This breach between these two celebrities 
seems never to have been healed. Johnson 
had no opinion to conceal as it respects Lord 
Chesterfield. " This man," said he, " I thought 
had been a lord among wits, but I find he is 
only a wit among lords." And when his letters 
to his natural son were published, he observed 
that " they teach the morals of a prostitute and 
the manners of a dancing-master." 



Life of Samuel JoJmsoji. 95 

Before completing his Dictionary Johnson, 
wishing to consult the libraries there, visited 
Oxford in the summer of this year, (1754.) 
This visit occurred about twenty-three years 
after the close of his student-Hfe at the Uni- 
versity. During this interval he had suffered 
much through poverty, and had acquired fame 
in authorship, and was about to become illus- 
trious by the completion of his great philo- 
logical work. 

He is, of course, much interested in this 
excursion. On his arrival he hastens to visit 
his old college. Great changes had occurred in 
so many years. The Master of his college was 
changed, and the present incumbent "knew 
not Joseph," and gave him but a chilling re- 
ception. " He waited on the Master, Dr. Rad- 
cliffe, who received him very coldly. Johnson 
at least expected that he would order a copy 
of his pictionary, now near publication ; but 
the Master did not choose to talk on the sub- 
ject, never asked Johnson to dine, nor even 
to visit him while he stayed at Oxford." 



g6 Life of Sanmel JoJinson. 

Rev. Mr. Meeke, Fellow of Trinity, received 
Johnson very differently, and their mutual 
greetings were of the most cordial character. 
After taking leave of Meeke, he says to his 
companion, " I used to think Meeke had excel- 
lent parts when we were boys together at the 
college, but, alas, 

' Lost in a convent's solitary gloom I ' 

I remember, at the classical lecture in the 
Hall, I could not bear Meeke's superiority, and 
I tried to sit as far from him as I could, that 
I might not hear him construe." He added : 
"About the same time of life Meeke was left 
behind at Oxford to feed on a Fellowship,* and 
I went to London to get my living. Now, sir, 
see the diiference of our literary characters ! " 
An editor subjoins the following judicious note : 
" Poverty was the stimulus which made John- 
son exert a genius naturally, it may be sup- 
posed, more vigorous than Meeke's, * and he 

* A College Fellowship is one of the features of the English 
Universities, and consists of a Foundation for the maintenance, 
on certain conditions, of a resident scholar, called a Fellow. 



Life of Saimiel yohnson. 97 

was now beginning to enjoy the fame of which 
so many painful years of distress and penury 
had laid the foundation. Meeke had lived an 
easy life of decent competence, and, on the 
whole, perhaps as little envied Johnson as 
Johnson him. The goodness and justice of 
Providence equalize, to a degree not always 
visible at first sight, the happiness of man- 
kind." 

Johnson's first tutor was dead, which he 
greatly regretted, and related of him the fol- 
lowing anecdote : " I once had been a whole 
morning shding in Christ Church meadows, 
and missed his lecture in logic. After dinner 
he sent for me to his room. I expected a sharp 
rebuke for my idleness, and went with a beat- 
ing heart. When we were seated he told me 
he had sent for me to drink a glass of wine 
with him, and to tell me he was not angry with 
me for missing his lecture. This was, in fact, 
a most severe reprimand. Some more of the 
boys were then sent for, and we spent a very 
pleasant afternoon." 



98 Life of Sarmiel yoJmson. 

All this, the wine excepted, is deeply in- 
teresting, and may furnish to teachers and 
masters a useful hint for their treatment of 
delinquent pupils. It seems useless to repeat 
that thousands of such have been won to duty 
by judicious kindness whom harshness and 
severity would have driven to desperation, and 
perhaps to ruin. 

About this time, and soon after Johnson's 
return from Oxford to London, application was 
again made by some friends to secure for him 
the degree of Master of Arts. At this time 
this degree was esteemed an honor of consider- 
able importance, and would "grace the title- 
page of his Dictionary ; and his character in 
the literary world being by this time deservedly 
high, his friends thought that, if proper exertions 
were made, the University of Oxford would pay 
him the compliment." 

As the result of this application, the Chan- 
cellor of Oxford recommended to the Uni- 
versity, in the following graceful terms, the 
conferring of the Diploma : 



Life of Samtiel yohnsoti- 99 

"Mr. Vice-Chancellor and Gentlemen : 
Mr. Samuel Johnson, who was formerly of Pem- 
broke College, having very eminently distin- 
guished himself by the publication of a series 
of essays, excellently calculated to form the 
manners of the people, and in which the cause 
of religion and morality is every-where main- 
tained by the strongest powers of argument and 
language, and who shortly intends to publish 
a Dictionary of the English tongue, formed on 
a new plan, and executed with the greatest 
labor and judgment ; I persuade myself that I 
shall act agreeable to the sentiments of the 
whole University, in desiring that it may be 
proposed in convocation to confer on him the 
degree of Master of Arts by diploma, to which 
I readily give my consent; and am, Mr. Vice- 
Chancellor and gentlemen, your affectionate 
friend and servant." 

The degree was, of course, conferred, for 
which Johnson returned, in Latin, his grateful 
acknowledgments. 



lOO Life of Samuel JoJmson. 



CHAPTER IX. 

The great Dictionary is at last completed. 
The publishers and proprietors were much 
vexed with the long delay, and their patience 
was well-nigh exhausted. The work had occu- 
pied seven years, although its author had given 
them reason to expect its completion in less 
than half that time ; and he had, long before 
reaching the end of his labor, received all the 
stipulated compensation. Mr. Miller was the 
publisher on whom devolved the principal 
charge of bringing out the Dictionary, and 
"when the messenger who carried the last 
sheet to Miller returned, Johnson asked him, 
' Well, what did he say } ' ' Sir,' answered the 
messenger, *he said. Thank God, I have done 
with him.' * I am glad,' replied Johnson with a 
smile, ' that he thanks God for any thing.' " 

A brief contemporary notice or twb of this 
Dictionary may not be out of place. 



Life of Samuel yohnson. loi 

"The Dictionary, with a Grammar and His- 
tory of the Enghsh Language, being now at 
length pubHshed in two volumes folio, the 
world contemplated with wonder so stupen- 
duous a work achieved by one man, while other 
countries had thought such undertakings fit 
only for whole academies. . . . The definitions 
have always appeared to me such astonishing 
proofs of acuteness of intellect and precision of 
language as indicate a genius of the highest 
rank. This it is which marks the superior ex- 
cellence of Johnson's Dictionary over others 
equally or even more voluminous." 

"The Dictionary is arrived. The preface is 
noble. There is a grammar prefixed, and the 
history of the language is pretty full ; but you 
may plainly perceive strokes of laxity and in- 
dolence. They are two most unwieldy volumes. 
I have written him an invitation. I fear his 
preface will disgust by the expression of his 
consciousness of superiority, and of his con- 
tempt of patronage." 

" I most sincerely congratulate the public 



I02 Life of Samii,el Johnson. 

upon the acquisition of a work long wanted, 
and now executed with an industry, accuracy, 
and judgment equal to the importance of the 
subject." * 

The somber language of Johnson, as he dis- 
misses his great work to the world, seems to 
speak little for the happiness accompanying 
literary eminence and fame : 

"I may surely be contented without the 
praise of perfection, which if I could obtain in 
this gloom of solitude, what would it avail me ? 
I have protracted my work till most of those 
whom I wished to please have sunk into the 
grave, and success and miscarriage are empty 
sounds. I therefore dismiss it with frigid tran- 
quillity, having little to fear or hope from cen- 
sure or from praise." 

* " Johnson's Dictionary first brought order out of the chaos 
of the language ; and though it has been generally superseded 
b}^ later compilations, yet the fundamental excellences of all 
modern dictionaries of the English language have their ele- 
ments in that work, and its author must always stand the 
confessed founder of English lexicography." — American En- 
cyclopedia. 



Life of SajHuel yohnson. 103 

The Dictionary brought to its author great 
fame and but sHght wealth. " He had spent, 
during the progress of the work, the money for 
which he had contracted to write his Dictionary. 
We have seen that the reward of his labor was 
only fifteen hundred and seventy-five pounds, 
($7,875 ;) and when the expense of amanuenses, 
paper, and other articles are deducted, his clear 
profit was very inconsiderable." 

Hence he was not placed above the neces- 
sity of " making provision for the day that was 
passing over him." No royal or noble patron 
extended a munificent hand to give independ- 
ence to the man who had conferred stability on 
the language of his country. We may feel in- 
dignant that there should have been such un- 
worthy neglect ; but we must, at the same 
time, congratulate ourselves when we consider, 
that to this very neglect, operating to rouse the 
natural indolence of his constitution, we owe 
many valuable productions which otherwise, 
perhaps, might never have appeared. The fol- 
lowing note to one of his friends presents a 



104 I^^f^ ^f Samuel yohnson. 

painful hint of the condition of his exchequer 
at this period : 

"GouGH Square, March 16, 1756. 

" Sir : I am obliged to entreat your assist- 
ance ; I am now under an arrest for five pounds 
eighteen shillings. Mr. Strahan, from whom 
I should have received the necessary help in 
this case is not at home, and I am afraid of 
not finding Mr. Miller. If you will be so good 
as to send me this sum I will very gratefully 
repay you, and add to it all former obligations. 

"I am, sir, your most obedient and most 
humble servant, ' Sam. Johnson." 

The writings oi Johnson in the course of 
this year (1756) were numerous, and were in 
the shape of essays, reviews, introductions, 
etc., and some of them anonymous. He also 
indulged in another species of composition, as 
the following curious extract will show : 

" About this time, as it is supposed, he com- 
posed pulpit discourses for sundry clergymen, 
and for these he made no scruple of confessing 




Johnson's House in Gough Square. 



Life of Samuel Johnson. 107 

he was paid. His price, I am informed, was 
a moderate one, a guinea ; and such was his 
notion of justice that, having been paid, he 
considered them so absokitely the property of 
the purchaser as to renounce all claim to them. 
He reckoned that he had written about forty 
sermons ; but, except as to some, knew not in 
what hands they were. I have, said he, been 
paid for them, and have no right to inquire 
about them." * 

There were those, however, among Johnson's 
friends who considered many of these miscel- 
laneous writings a misapplication of his talents. 
They deemed that it was beneath him who 
had attained such eminence as a writer, that he 

* Did not Johnson know the use to be made of these ser- 
mons? Was it any more criminal to compose "Parliamentary 
Debates," and palm them off upon the public as the speeches of 
others, than to write sermons with the same view? And if 
the writer contributed to deception in the one case, did he not 
do the same thing in the other? And if so, was not the one 
transaction as much a matter for repentance as the other ? So 
much for the author of the sermons. As for the preachers of 
these same sermons — preaching them as their own — there can 
be but one judgment, that of unqualified condemnation. 



io8 Life of Samuel Johnson. 

should waste his energies in aiding magazines, 
reviews, and even newspapers, and in prefaces 
and dedications for books, whose authors could 
not write them for themselves. Hence certain 
publishers proposed to him a literary under- 
taking of more character and dignity, and such 
as seemed to afford a prospect both of amuse- 
ment and profit. " This was an edition of 
Shakspeare's dramatic works, which, by a con- 
currence of circumstances, was now becoming 
necessary to answer the increasing demand of 
the public for the writings of that author." 

The following personal notices of Johnson 
at this period of his life (age forty-seven) will 
not be without interest : 

"Though his time seemed to be bespoke, 
and quite engrossed, his house was always 
open to all his acquaintance, new and old. His 
amanuensis has given up his pen, the printer's 
devil has waited on the stairs for a proof-sheet, 
and the press has often stood still, while his 
visitors were delighted and instructed. No sub- 
ject ever came amiss to him. He could trans- 



Life of Samuel Johnson. 109 

fer his thoughts from one thing to another with 
the most accommodating facihty. He had the 
art, for which Locke was famous, of leading 
people to talk on their favorite subjects, and 
on what they knew best. By this he acquired 
a great deal of information. What he once 
heard he rarely forgot. They gave him their 
best conversation, and he generally made them 
pleased with themselves for endeavoring to 
please him. Poet Smart used to relate that 
his first conversation with Johnson was of such 
variety and length that it began with poetry 
and ended at fluxions. He always talked as 
if he was talking upon oath. He was the wisest 
person, and had the most knowledge in ready 
cash, that Tyers ever knew. Johnson's advice 
was consulted on all occasions. He was known 
to be a good casuist, and, therefore, had many 
cases submitted for his judgment. His conver- 
sation, in the judgment of others, was thought 
to be equal to his correct writings. Perhaps 
the tongue will throw out more animated ex- 
pressions than the pen. He said the most 



no Life of Samuel yohnson, 

common things in the newest manner. He 
always commanded attention and regard. His 
person, though unadorned with dress, and even 
deformed bj neglect, made you expect some- 
thing, and you was hardly ever disappointed. 
His manner was interesting ; the tone of his 
voice and the sincerity of his expressions, even 
when they did not captivate your affections or 
carry conviction, prevented contempt." . . . 

" No man dared to take liberties with him, 
nor flatly contradict him, for he could repel any 
attack, having always about him the weapons 
of ridicule, of wit, and of argument. It must be 
owned that some who had the desire to be ad- 
mitted to him thought him too dogmatical, and 
as exacting too much homage to his opinions, 
and came no more." " His hand and his heart 
were always open to charity. The objects 
under his own roof were only a few of the 
subjects for relief He was ever at the head of 
subscription in cases of distress. His guinea, 
as he said of another man of bountiful disposi- 
tion, was always ready. He wrote an exhorta- 



Life of Samuel "jFohnson. m 

tion to public bounty. He drew up a paper 
to recommend the French prisoners, in the 
last war but one, to the English benevolence, 
which was of service. He implored the hand 
of benevolence for others, even when he almost 
seemed a proper object of relief himself." 



ri2 Life of Samuel yoJinson. 



CHAPTER X. 

Johnson now issued proposals for a new edition 
of Shakspeare with notes. In this prospectus 
he evinced his perfect knowledge of what an 
extent and variety of research such an under- 
taking required. " But his indolence prevented 
him from pursuing it with that diligence which 
alone can collect those scattered facts that 
genius, however acute, penetrating, and lumin- 
ous, cannot discover by its own force. It is 
remarkable that this time his fancied activity 
was for the moment so vigorous that he prom- 
ised his work should be published before Christ- 
mas, 1757. Yet nine years elapsed before it 
ever saw the light." 

This outrageous delay brought on him the 
satirical squib from Churchill : 

*' He for subscribers baits his hook, 

And takes your cash ; but whore's the book ? 



Life of Samuel Johns 07i, 113 

No matter where ; wise fear, you know, 
Forbids the robbing of a foe ; 
But what, t6 serve our private ends. 
Forbids the cheating of our friends ? " 

One would have supposed that a work Hke 
the one he had now undertaken, and which 
seemed so well adapted to his genius, would 
have been prosecuted with delight as well as 
dispatch. But it was quite otherwise. " I look 
upon this as I did upon the Dictionary ; it is 
all work ; and my inducement to it is not love 
or desire of fame, but the want of money, which 
is the only motive to writing that I know of" * 
The result was correspondent ; for one of his 
friends writes that *' neither did he set himself 
to collect early editions of his author, old plays, 
translations of histories ; and of the classics, 
and other materials necessary for his purpose, 

* Happily, a thousand others have known of motives to 
writing infinitely superior. There is such a thing as writing 
con amore ; and such a thing as writing from a sense of duty ; 
and also such a thing as writing from the principle of simple 
benevolence. Better had it been for Johnson, and even for 
his literary fame, had such motives more fully inspired his 
might}'' pen. 



1-14 Life of Samuel Johnson. 

nor could he be prevailed on to enter into that 
course of reading without which it seemed im- 
possible to come at the sense of his auihor. It 
was provoking to all his friends to see him waste 
his days, his weeks, and his months so long, that 
they feared a mental lethargy had seized him, 
out of which he would never recover." 

After two years, however, from the time 
he commenced his Shakspeare he aroused to 
activity. But it was not for the work which he 
had pledged to the public, but for furnishing a 
new series of periodical essays under the title 
of " The Idler," as expressive of his aversion to 
the labor requisite to his principal work.* 

* And it was this aversion " that not only so long delayed 
his Shakspeare, but rendered its value so moderate when it 
did, at last, make its appearance. It is as true in composition 
as in any other labor, that where one attempts a work to which 
he is averse, such a work will very likely prove a failure. Our 
own Irving practiced a sounder philosophy, in seizing for his 
work of composition his more brilliant hours, and when he 
was "in the spirit" of writing. We do not u'-ge or advise 
that these moments of inspiration should be waited for by 
the writer ; but they should be seized and improved with the 
utmost eagerness whenever they come to him. 



Life of Sarmtel Johnson. 115 

He commenced these essays April 15, 1758 ; 
and they were pubHshed every Saturday in a 
weekly newspaper, and were continued, like 
"The Rambler," through two years. Of the 
two hundred and three numbers, all but twelve 
were written by Johnson himself. 

" The Idler " is evidently the work of the same 
mind which produced '' The Rambler," but has 
less body and more spirit. It has more varieity 
of real life, and greater facility of language. He 
describes the miseries of idleness with the 
lively sensations of one who has felt them ; and 
in his private memorandums while engaged 
in it we find, " This year I hope to learn dili- 
gence." Many of these excellent essays were 
written as hastily as an ordinary letter. . . . 
Yet there are in " The Idler " several papers 
which show as much profundity of thought, and 
labor of language, as any of this great man's 
writings." 

About the time of commencing " The Idler " 
Johnson was offered the gift of a rectory, with a 
valuable living, if he were inclined to enter into 



Il6 Life of Saimiel yohnson. 

holy orders. He declined the offer, "partly 
from a conscientious motive, being persuaded 
that his temper and his habits rendered him 
unfit for that assiduous and familiar instruction 
of the vulgar and ignorant which he held to 
be an essential duty in a clergyman, and partly 
because his love of a London life was so strong 
that he would have thought himself an exile in 
any other place, particularly if residing in the 
country." 

And so Johnson remains poor. In fact, 
during this year, 1758, his finances seem as low 
as ever, and he finds it necessary to retrench 
his expenses. He gave up his house and 
removed to chambers, where he lived *' in 
poverty, total idleness, and the pride of liter- 
ature." A friend pays him a morning visit 
intending to write a letter there, but, " to his 
great surprise, finds an author by profession 
without pen, ink, or paper." 

Added to the sorrows of poverty, he is 
doomed again to the pains of bereavement. 
Early in 1759 his widowed mother de- 



Life of Samuel yohnsoit. 117 

parted this life, at the great age of ninety 
years. 

Aware of her low condition, he addresses her 
the following note, which seems to have been 
written at London on the very day of her death 
at Lichfield : 

"■January 20, 1159. 

" Dear Honored Mother : Neither your 
condition nor your character make it fit for 
me to say much. You have been the best 
mother, and, I believe, the best woman, in 
the world. I thank you for your indulgence 
to me, and beg forgiveness of all that I have 
omitted to do well. God grant you his Holy 
Spirit, and receive you to everlasting happi- 
ness, for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen ! Lord 
Jesus, receive your spirit ! Amen ! I am, 
dear, dear mother, your dutiful son, 

" Sam. Johnson." * 

* Johnson here addresses his dying mother as " dear " and 
" honored ;" but, we must think, with little reason. How dear 
and honored could she have been when, at a distance of only 
one hundred and sixteen miles, he had allowed a score of 
years to pass without visiting or seeing her ; when, after all 



Il8 Life of Samuel Johnson. 

Thus Johnson was not present at the death 
or funeral of his mother ; but to his step- 
daughter at Lichfield, who had long resided 
with his mother, he expressed himself as being 
" now very desolate." 

To defray, as he said, the expenses of his 
mother's funeral, and to cancel some small 
debts of her's, he soon after her death wrote 
his *' Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia." He told 
a friend that he composed this book in the 
evenings of a single week, sent it to press in 
portions as it was written, and had never after- 
ward read it over. The publisher gave him 
$500 for the manuscript, and gave ^125 more 
when it came to a second edition. 

Boswell speaks of this admirable work as one 

those years of absence, on hearing of her dying sickness, he 
neglected to hasten to her; and when this very letter, in 
which he addresses her as "dear and honored," was written 
as a sort of postscript to a letter which he had addressed to 
his step-daughter ! Children, whether older or younger, cannot 
be too well assured that such is no true way of honoring their 
parents. Well might he write to his step-daughter, after his 
mother's death, " If she were to live again I should beliavo 
better to her." 



Life of Samuel yohnson. 119 

which, though its author "had written nothing 
else, would have rendered his name immortal 
in the world of literature. None of his writings 
has been so extensively diffused over Europe, 
for it has been translated into most, if not all, 
the modern languages. This tale, with all the 
charms of oriental imagery, and all the force 
and beauty of which the English language is 
capable, leads us through the most important 
scenes of human life, and shows us that this 
stage of our being is full of vanity and vexation 
of spirit." And it was a criticism of a very 
accomplished lady, that Rasselas " may be con- 
sidered as a more enlarged and more deeply 
philosophical discourse in prose upon the in- 
teresting truth which, in his ' Vanity of Human 
Wishes,' he had so successfully enforced in 



120 Life of Samuel Johnson. 



CHAPTER XL 

Johnson has now gone by his fiftieth year. 
He is still writing, and various miscellaneous 
pieces drop from his pen, while yet there seems 
but little progress, and not much is accom- 
plished that is worthy of note. He is probably 
proceeding with his edition of Shakspeare ; 
but how zealously or how languidly no one 
now knows. Amid this year of 1761 he speaks 
of his life as "dissipated and useless," and he 
is still straitened and poor. 

But a brighter day is about to dawn upon 
Johnson. The old king is dead, during whose 
reign no mark of royal favor had honored literary 
attainments and eminence. But George HI. 
has ascended the throne of England, and the 
whole land rejoices. He was educated in his 
own country, and his education, "as well as 
his taste, prompted him to be the patron of 
science and the arts." 



Life of Sanmel yohnson. 



121 




GEORGE in. 



Johnson is early 
named to the king 
by several friends 
as a suitable can- 
didate for a pen- 
sion, and it was 
shortly announced 
to him that the ap- 
plication would be 
successful. He is 
said to have replied, "The English language 
does not afford me terms adequate to my feel- 
ings on this occasion. I must have recourse 
to the French, I ^ccn iKnetre^ with his majesty's 
goodness," 

The pension was granted — ^1,500 a year — 
and the great author and sage was at once 
elevated to comfortable circumstances. 

Every way honorable was this mark of royal 
favor. The young king had no interested 
motive in conferring it. Then the pen of 



* Ay ; but would not our word penetrated have answered as 
weU? 



122 Life of Sarmtel Johitson. 

Johnson was an instrument of great power, 
and could accomplish much for the welfare or 
danger of the new reign ; but all this had 
nothing to do with the noble gift. It was em- 
phatically a " reward of merit," and it was alike 
honorable to the king and to the subject, 
when Lord Bute announced to the latter, " It 
(the pension) is not given you for any thing 
you are to do, but for what you have done." 
These grand words were repeated twice to 
Johnson to make sure that he heard and com- 
prehended them well. 

Johnson on the reception of this gift, so great 
and important to him, thus addressed Lord 
Bute: 

"Bounty always receives part of its value 
from the manner in which it is bestowed. 
Your lordship's kindness includes every cir- 
cumstance that can gratify delicacy, or enforce 
obligation. You have conferred your favors 
on a man who has neither alliance nor interest, 
who has not merited them by services, nor 
courted them by officiousness ; you have spared 



Life of Samuel yohnson. 123 

him the shame of sohcitation, and the anxiety 
of suspense. 

"What has been thus elegantly given will, 
I hope, not be reproachfully enjoyed. I shall 
endeavor to give your lordship the only re- 
compense which generosity desires — the grati- 
fication of finding that your benefits are not 
improperly bestowed. I am, mj Lord, your lord- 
ship's most obedient and most humble servant." 

" The addition of three hundred pounds a 
year to what Johnson was able to earn by the 
ordinary exercise of his talents raised him to a 
state of comparative affluence, arid afforded him 
the means of assisting many Avhose real or pre- 
tended wants had formerly excited his compas- 
sion. He now practiced a rule which he often 
recommended to his friends, always to carry 
some loose money to give to beggars." 

Another writes : " He loved the poor as I 

never yet saw any one else do, with an earnest 

desire to make them happy. . . . He nursed 

whole nests of people in his house, where the 

lame, the blind, the sick, and the sorrowful 
8 



124 Life of Samuel Johnson. 

found a sure retreat from all the evils whence 
his little income could secure them." 

Johnson's more familiar life at this time is 
thus depicted by one who enjoyed his friend- 
ship : 

" His general mode of life during my ac- 
quaintance seemed to be pretty uniform. 
About twelve o'clock I commonly visited him, 
and frequently found him in bed or declaiming 
over his tea, which he drank very plentifully. 
He generally had a levee of morning visitors, 
chiefly men of letters : Hawkesworth, Gold- 
smith, Murphy, Langton, Steevens, Beauclerk, 
etc., etc., and sometimes learned ladies ; par- 
ticularly I remember a French lady of wit and 
fashion doing him the honor of a visit. He 
seemed to me to be considered as a kind of 
public oracle, whom every body thought they 
had a right to visit and consult ; and doubtless 
they were well rewarded. I never could dis- 
cover how he found time for his compositions. 
He declaimed all the morning, then went to 
dinner at a tavern, where he commonly stayed 



Life of Samicel yoJinson. 125 

late, and then drank his tea at some friend's 
house, over which he loitered a great while, but 
seldom took supper. I fancy he must have 
read and wrote chiefly in the night. . . . He 
frequently gave all the silver in his pocket to 
the poor, who watched him between his house 
and the tavern where he dined. He walked 
the streets at all hours, and said he was never 
robbed, for the rogues knew he had little 
money, nor had the appearance of having much. 

"Thoua:h the most accessible and communi- 
cative man alive, yet when he suspected he was 
invited to be exhibited he constantly spurned 
the invitation. 

"Johnson was much attached to London. 
He observed that a man stored his. mind better 
there than anywhere else ; and that in remote 
situations a man's body might be feasted, but 
his mind was starved, and his faculties apt to 
degenerate from want of exercise and com- 
petition. No place, (he said,) cured a man's 
vanity or arrogance so well as London ; for as 
no man was either great or good per se, but 



126 Life of Samuel Johnson. 

as compared with others not so good or great, 
he was sure to find in the great metropohs 
many his equals, and some his superiors. He 
observed that a man in London was in less 
danger of falling in love indiscreetly there than 
anywhere else ; for there the difficulty of decid- 
ing between the conflicting pretensions of a 
vast variety of objects kept him safe. He told 
me that he had frequently been offered country 
preferment if he would consent to take orders ; 
but he could not leave the improved society of 
the capital, or consent to exchange the exhila- 
rating joys and splendid decorations of public 
life for the obscurity, insipidity, and uniformity 
of remote situations." * 

The following remarks expressive of John- 
son's bearing toward Ireland have a present 
interest, and will meet the warm approval of 
multitudes : 

"He had great compassion for the miseries 
and distresses of the Irish nation, particularly 
the Papists ; and severely reprobated the bar- 

* Rev. Dr. Maxwell. 



Life of Samuel yohnson. 127 

barous, debilitating policy of the British gov- 
ernment, which, he said, was the most detesta- 
ble mode of persecution. To a gentleman who 
hinted that such policy might be necessary to 
support the authority of the English govern- 
ment, he replied by saying, ' Let the authority 
of the English government perish, rather than 
be maintained by iniquity. Better would it be 
to restrain the turbulence of the natives by the 
authority of the sword, and to make them 
amenable to law and justice by an effectual and 
vigorous police, than to grind them to powder 
by all manner of disabilities and incapacities. 
Better,' said he, 'to hang or drown people at 
once, than by an unrelenting persecution to 
beggar and starve them.' " 

Equal candor and good sense are manifested 
in the following testimony touching Methodism 
and its great founder. " He observed that the 
established clergy in general did not preach 
plain enough, and that the polished periods and 
glittering sentences flew over the heads of the 
common people without any impression upon 



128 Life of Sanmel yohnson. 

their hearts. Something might be necessary, 
he observed, to excite the affections of the com- 
mon people, who were sunk in languor and 
lethargy, and, therefore, he supposed that the 
new concomitants of Methodism might prob- 
ably produce so desirable an effect. The mind, 
like the body, he observed, delighted in change 
and novelty, and, even in religion itself, courted 
new appearances and modifications. Whatever 
might be thought of some Methodist teachers, 
he said he could scarcely doubt the sincerity 
of that man * who traveled nine hundred miles 
in a month, and preached twelves times a week ; 
for no adequate reward, merely temporal, could 
be given for such indefatigable labor." 

* "Weslev. 



Life of Samuel yoJuison. 129 



CHAPTER XII. 

It was about this time (1763) that Johnson and 
his famous biographer, James Boswell, first met. 



BOSWELL. 

Boswell was a Scotchman, son of a Scotch 
judge, and was about twenty- two years of age 
at his first interview with Johnson. He had 
been educated at Edinburgh and Glasgow, and 



130 Life of Samuel Johnson. 

early manifested an ambition for intimacy with 
distinguished men, a fondness for EngUsh 
society, and a predilection for authorship. He 
was a man of marked faults, being characterized 
by an inordinate egotism and vanity, habits of 
self-indulgence, mean tastes, and obsequiousness 
to great men. Subsequently to his first acquaint- 
ance with Johnson he traveled over Europe, 
and had numerous love adventures with ladies 
of almost every civilized nation; and, in 1769, 
married his cousin. Miss Montgomery.* 

* The following picture of Boswell, from the masterly pencil 
of Macaulay — though overdrawn, as we must think — is yet too 
good to be omitted here : 

" Many of the greatest men that ever hved have written 
biography; Boswell was one of the smallest men that ever 
lived, and he has beaten them all. He was, if we are to give 
any credit to his own account, or to the united testimony of 
all who knew him, a man of the meanest and feeblest intellect. 
Johnson described him as a fellow who had missed his only 
chance of immortality by not having been alive when the 
Dunciad was written. Beauclerk used his name as a proverbial 
expression for a bore. He was the laughing-stock of the whole 
of that brilliant society which has owed to him the greater part 
of its fame. He was always laying himself at the feet of some 
eminent man, and begging to be spit upon and trampled upon 
. . . Servile and impertinent, shallow and pedantic, a bigot 



Life of Samuel Johnson. 131 

Long before he had seen Johnson he had 
heard of him, and read his writings " with 
deUght and instruction, and had the highest 
reverence for their author, which had grown 
up, in his fancy, into a kind of mysterious 
veneration." 

Strange as it may have been, Johnson seems 
to have fancied this young man in spite of his 
foibles ; although it must be admitted, with all 
deference to Macaulay, that, whatever may have 
been Boswell's faults and weaknesses, he was 
a man of no ordinary abilities ; for no man with- 
out superior abilities could ever have produced 
" the most entertaining biography ever written, 
and such as to render its subject better known 
to us than any other human being who has 
been more than eighty years in his grave." 

Thus, at twenty-two years of age, Boswell, 
on a visit to London, had the address to be 

and a sot, bloated with family pride, and eternally blustering 
about the dignity of a born gentleman, yet stooping to be a 
tale-bearer, an evesdroppej, a common butt in the taverns of 
London." 



132 Life of Samuel yohnso7i. 

introduced to Johnson, and always, afterward, 
sought his society as one of his superior privi- 
leges and pleasures. 

Of 1763, Boswell writes: "This is to me a 
memorable year, for in it I had the happiness 
to obtain the acquaintance of that extraordinary 
man whose memoirs I am now writing ; an 
acquaintance which I shall ever esteem as one 
of the most fortunate circumstances in my 
life." 

Boswell was honored with his first introduc- 
tion to Johnson at the house of a Mr. Davis. 
Johnson entered during tea, and Boswell, as 
he was presented, was much agitated. 

At this first introduction Johnson descants 
upon " Kames' Elements of Criticism," calling- 
it a pretty essay, though much of it chimerical. 
He speaks of Wilkes, who had attacked public 
measures and the royal family, as an abusive 
scoundrel who should be well ducked. He 
spoke somewhat disparagingly of Sheridan, 
Derrick, and others, and seems to have treated 
his new acquaintance somewhat gruffly at first. 



V i '^ \\, 



■^Mdm. 




Life of Samuel JoJmsoii. 135 

but more civilly toward the close of the inter- 
view. Thus Boswell expresses himself as 
highly pleased with "the extraordinary vigor 
of his conversation," and regrets that he was 
obliged to leave to fulfill another engagement. 
He was satisfied that, "though there was a 
roughness in his manner, there was no ill- 
nature in his disposition." 

About a week afterward Boswell sought a 
second interview, and called on Johnson at his 
own lodgings. " He received me," says Bos- 
well, " very courteously ; but it must be con- 
fessed that his apartment, and furniture, and 
morning dress were sufficiently uncouth. His 
brown suit of clothes looked very rusty ; he 
had on a little old shriveled, unpowdered wig, 
which was too small for his head ; his shirt, 
neck, and knees of his breeches were loose, his 
black worsted stockings ill-drawn up, and he 
had a pair of unbuckled shoes by way of slip- 
pers. But all these slovenly particularities 
were forgotten the moment that he began to 
talk." 



136 Life of Samuel yohnson. 

In the course of the conversation Johnson 
speaks of a crazy acquaintance of his whom he 
commiserates. " I did not think he ought to 
be shut up. His infirmities were not noxious 
to society. He insisted on people praying with 
him ; and I'd as Uef pray with Kit Smart as 
with any one else. Another charge was that he 
did not love clean linen ; and I have no passion 
for it." 

Mr. Boswell exhibits promptly his character- 
istic flippancy, for when, at this interview, John- 
son told him that he generally went abroad at 
four in the afternoon, and seldom came home 
till two in the morning, " I took the liberty," 
says Boswell, " to ask if he did not think it 
wrong to live thus, and not to make more use 
of his great talents. He owned it was a bad 
habit." 

" Give me your hand ; I have taken a liking 
to you." Such were the words of Johnson to 
Boswell at their next interview but one. A 
curious friendship! A singular affiliation of 
two individuals in many respects so diverse. 



Life of Samuel Johnson. 137 

A youth of twenty-two allied to a sage of fifty- 
four. A young man talented, in some sense, it 
is true, but flippant, bold, pushing, conceited, 
yet admitted to close fellowship with one great 
above most, and whose fame was established 
and his name illustrious. A magnificent lumi- 
nary had attracted a sparkling satellite from 
afar, that ceased not to circle around its central 
orb to the hour of its setting and disappearance 
forever. 

They are, as observed, enjoying another in- 
terview, and it is at the Mitre, one of the 
London taverns. The young man, Boswell, is 
greatly elated, and a feeling of sublimity is 
stealing over him. " The orthodox, high-church 
sound of the Mitre, the figure and manners of 
the celebrated Samuel Johnson, the extraordi- 
nary power and precision of his conversation, 
and the pride arising from finding myself ad- 
mitted as his companion, produced a variety of 
sensations, and a pleasing elevation of mind 
beyond what I had ever before experienced." 

Johnson talks his best, as usual. 



138 Life of Samuel yohnson. 

" Colley Gibber, sir, was by no means a 
blockhead." 

" Sir, I do not think Gray a first-rate poet. 
He has not a bold imagination, nor much com- 
mand of words. . . . His Elegy in a Ghurch- 
yard has a happy selection of images, but I 
don't like what are called his great things." 

He declares off from bigotry, and astonishes 
Boswell with his catholic spirit. " For my part, 
sir, I think all Ghristians, whether Papists or 
Protestants, agree in the essential articles, and 
that .their differences are trivial, and rather 
political than religious." * 

In this interview they talk also of ghosts, 
or, rather, of belief in them ; wherein Johnson 
evinces equal candor as on the theme of Chris- 
tian charity. Foote and Goldsmith are partial- 
ly canvassed, the latter of whom, says Johnson, • 

* A catholic spirit is beautiful ; but, doubtless, by " Protest- 
ants," here, Johnson means the Church of England only; as 
his charity, when afterward in Scotland, seemed not to be suffi- 
ciently extensive to allow him to listen to a Presbyterian ser- 
mon, or enter a Presbyterian church ; and what, in his eye, 
were the Puritans but "dogs." 



I 



Life of SaniiLcl yoJuison. ' 139 

"is one of the first men we now have as an 
author, and he is a very worthy man too." 

Then they converse of Boswell's contem- 
plated travels. " Your going abroad, sir, and 
breaking off idle habits, may be of great impor- 
tance to you. I would go where there are 
courts and learned men. There is a great deal 
of Spain that has not been perambulated. I 
would have you go thither. A man of inferior 
talents to yours may furnish us with useful ob- 
servations upon that country." 

The interview closes thus : " It is very good 
in you," says Boswell, " to allow me to be with 
you thus. Had it been foretold to me, some 
years ago, that I should pass an evening with 
the author of "The Rambler," how should I 
have exulted." " Sir," replies Johnson, " I am 
glad we have met ; I hope we shall pass many 
evenings, and mornings too, together." 

And so they parted at two in the morning, 
after having finished a couple of bottles of Port. 
A bad accompaniment. Let scholars, young 
and old, beware. 



I40 



Life of Samuel Johnson. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

As the celebrated Oliver Goldsmith figures 
somewhat prominently in the story of Johnson 
-^^^vr^^^^v;;^^,^ a brief personal no- 

tice of him will be 
in place. 

He was a native of 
Ireland, and contem- 
porary with Burke 
at Trinity College, 
Dublin, He seems 
not to have excelled 
in college, studied 
medicine at Edinburgh, made the tour of 
Europe, and early became a reviewer and news- 
paper writer. He had an extraordinary faculty 
of displaying to advantage whatever he knew, 
and is said to have "touched nothing which 
he did not adorn." His person was short, 
countenance coarse and vulgar, and general 




OLIVER GOLDSMITH, 



Life of Samuel Johnson. 141 

deportment awkward. He was shallow in con- 
versation, had some wit but "no humor, and 
never told a story but he spoiled it." In a 
word, this man possessed noble qualities, and 
such as were of the opposite character. He 
was both eminent and mean ; while Walpole, 
who admired his writings, called him "an in- 
sipid idiot ;" and Garrick describes him as 

"For shortness called Noll, 
"Who wrote like an angel and talked like poor Poll." 

Goldsmith became one of Johnson's admirers, 
earnestly cultivated his acquaintance, and was 
much benefited by the contemplation of such a 
model. Nor was Johnson backward in his ap- 
preciation of Goldsmith ; and, among his earliest 
recorded sayings of him, he asserts, " Dr. Gold- 
smith is one of the first men we now have as 
an author, and he is a very worthy man too. 
He has been loose in his principles, but he is 
coming right." 

Goldsmith seems to have now cultivated 
much intimacy with Johnson, and was recog- 
nized as one of the brightest ornaments of the 
9 



142 Life of Samuel Johnson. 

Johnsonian society. The following anecdote 
of these two men may be recited as charac- 
teristic of both of them, and the incident 
occurred just at this point of our story : 

"I received one morning," says Johnson, 
" a message from poor Goldsmith that he was 
in great distress ; and as it was not in his 
power to come to me, begging that I would 
come to .him as soon as possible. I sent him a 
guinea, and promised to come to him directly. 
I accordingly went as soon as I was dressed, 
and found that his landlady had arrested him 
for his rent, at which he was in a violent pas- 
sion. I perceived that he had already changed 
my guinea, and had got a bottle of Madeira 
and a glass before him. I put the cork into 
the bottle, desired he would be calm, and began 
to talk to him of the means by which he might 
be extricated. He then told me that he had 
a novel ready for the press, which he produced 
to me. I looked into it, and saw its merit, 
told the landlady I should soon return, and 
having gone to the bookseller, sold it for sixty 




«^^ ^ ^ 



Life of Samuel Johnsoji. 145 

pounds. I brought Goldsmith the money and 
he discharged his rent, not without rating his 
landlady in a high tone for having used him 
so ill." 

We here insert some more of Johnson's 
characteristic criticisms upon men and things. 

Of Churchill and his poetry he says : " Sir, 
I called the fellow a blockhead at first, and 
I will call him a blockhead still. ... He is a 
tree that cannot produce good fruit, he only 
bears crabs. But, sir, a tree that produces a 
great many crabs is better than a tree which 
produces only a few." 

Speaking of the eminent writers in Queen 
Anne's reign : " I think," said he, " Dr. Ar- 
buthnot the first among them. He was the 
most universal genius, being an excellent phy- 
sician, a man of deep learning, and a man of 
much humor. Mr. Addison was, to be sure, 
a great man. His learning was not profound ; 
but his morality, his humor, and his elegance 
of writing set him very high." 

Mr. Ogilvie had observed to Johnson that 



146 Life of Samuel yohnson. 

Scotland had a good many noble wild prospects. 
Johnson replied, "I believe, sir, you have a 
great many. Norway, too, has wild prospects, 
and Lapland is remarkable for prodigious noble 
wild prospects. But, sir, let me tell you the 
noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees 
is the high road that leads him to England." 

A similar reply was given to a lady who was 
telling him of the sublime prospects up the 
St. Lawrence. *' Come, madam, confess that 
nothing ever equaled your pleasure in see- 
ing that sight reversed, and finding yourself 
looking at the happy prospect dozvn the St. 
Lawrence." 

He detested Brighthelmstone Downs "be- 
cause," said he, "it is a country so truly deso- 
late that if one had a mind to hang one's self 
for desperation at being obliged to live there, 
it would be difficult to find a tree on which 
to fasten the rope." 

" Idleness is a disease which must be com- 
bated ; but I would not advise a rigid adherence 
to a particular plan of study. I myself have 



Life of Samuel Johnson. 147 

never jDersisted in any plan for two days to- 
gether. A man ought to read just as inchna- 
tion leads him, for what he reads as a task 
will do him little good. A young man should 
read five hours in a day, and so may acquire 
a great deal of knowledge." 

Speaking of the qualifications of an historian, 
he observed that " great abilities are not requi- 
site, for in historical composition all the greatest 
powers of the human mind are quiescent. He 
has facts ready to his hand, so there is no exer- 
cise of invention. Imagination is not required 
in any high degree; only about as much as is 
used in the lower kinds of poetry. Some pene- 
tration, accuracy, and coloring will fit a man 
for the task if he can give the application 
which is necessary." 

Johnson seems to have had but a slight taste 
for landscape prospects, rural scenery, etc., and 
advised Boswell, as he was about to travel, " to 
go a hundred miles to speak with one wise 
man rather than five miles to see one fair 
town ; and " he accordingly advised me," says 



148 Life of Sarmicl yohnson. 

he, " to be as much as I could with the profess- 
ors in the universities, and with the clergy ; 
for from their conversation I might expect the 
best accounts of every thing in whatever coun- 
try I should be, with the additional advantage 
of keeping my learning alive." 

An impudent fellow from Scotland affected 
to be a savage, and to rail at all established 
systems. " There is nothing surprising in this, 
sir. He wants to make himself conspicuous. 
He would tumble in a hogsty as long as you 
looked at him and called to him to come out. 
But let him alone, never mind him, and he'll 
soon give it over." 

This same person insisted that there was no 
distinction between virtue and vice. " Why, 
sir," says Johnson, " if the fellow does not 
think as he speaks he is lying ; and I see not 
what honor he can propose to himself for 
having the character of a liar. But if he does 
really think that there is no distinction between 
virtue and vice, why, sir, when he leaves our 
houses, let us count our spoons." 



Life of Samuel Johnson. 149 

Criticising the style of Hume, Johnson ob- 
serves, " Why, sir, his style is not English ; the 
structure of his sentences is French. Now the 
French structure and the English structure 
may, in the nature of things, be equally good. 
But if you allow that the English language is 
established, he is wrong. My name might 
originally have been Nicholson, as well as John- 
son ; but were you to call me Nicholson now, 
you would call me very absurdly." 

He further says of Hume that he and other 
skeptical innovators are vain men, and will 
gratify themselves at any expense. Truth will 
not afford sufficient food to their vanity, so 
they have betaken themselves to error. Truth, 
sir, is a cow which will yield such people no more 
milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull. If 
I could have allowed myself to gratify my vanity 
at the expense of truth, what fame might I 
have acquired } Every thing which Hume 
has advanced against Christianity had passed 
through my mind long before he wrote. Always 
remember this, that after a system is well set- 



150 Life of Samuel Johnson. 

tied upon positive evidence, a few partial objec- 
tions ought not to shake it. The human mind 
is so limited that it cannot take in all the parts 
of a subject, so that there may be objections 
raised against any thing. There are objections 
against a plenum, and objections against a 
vacuum; yet one of them must certainly be 
true." 

Remarking upon Hume's argument against 
the belief of miracles, he presents us the follow- 
ing clear and judicious statement : 

" Why, sir, the great difficulty of proving 
miracles should make us very cautious in 
believing them. But let us consider ; although 
God has made nature to operate by certain 
fixed laws, yet it is not unreasonable to think 
that he may suspend those laws in order to 
establish a system highly advantageous to man- 
kind. Now the Christian religion is a most 
beneficial system, as it gives us light and cer- 
tainty where we were before in darkness and 
doubt. The miracles which prove it are at- 
tested by men who had no interest in deceiving 



Life of Samuel yohnson. 151 

us, but who, on the contrary, were told that 
they should suffer persecution, and did actu- 
ally lay down their lives in confirmation of the 
truth of the facts which they asserted. Indeed, 
for some centuries the heathens did not pre- 
tend to deny the miracles, but said they were 
performed by the aid of evil spirits. This is a 
circumstance of great weight. Then, sir, v/hen 
we take the proofs derived from prophecies 
which have been so exactly fulfilled we have 
most satisfactory evidence. Supposing a mir- 
acle possible, as to which, in my opinion, there 
can be no doubt, we have as strong evidence 
for the miracles in support of Christianity as 
the nature of the thing admits. ... As to the 
Christian religion, sir, besides the strong evi- 
dence which we have for it, there is a balance 
in its favor from the number of great men who 
have been convinced of its truth after a serious 
consideration of the question. Grotius was an 
acute man, a lawyer, a man accustomed to 
examine evidence, and he was convinced. 
Grotius was not a recluse, but a man of the 



152 Life of Samuel yohiison. 

world, who certainly had no bias to the side of 
religion. Sir Isaac Newton set out an infidel, 
and came to be a very firm believer." 

He is speaking of the young : " Sir, I love 
the acquaintance of young people, because, in 
the first place, I don't like to think myself 
growing old. In the next place, young acquaint- 
ances must last longest if they do last ; and 
then, sir, young men have more virtue than old 
men ; they have more generous sentiments in 
every respect. I love the young dogs of this 
age ; they have more wit and humor and knowl- 
edge of life than we had ; but then the dogs 
are not so good scholars.* Sir, in my early 
years I read very hard. It is a sad reflection, 
but a true one, that I knew almost as much at 
eighteen as I do now. My judgment, to be 
sure, was not so good ; but I had all the facts. 
I remember very well, when I was at Oxford, 
an old man said to me, " Young man, ply your 

* Wesley also loved young men, but for a somewhat differ- 
ent reason, namely, that they might be preaching the Gospel 
after he himself would be in liis grave. 



Life of Samuel Johnson. 153 

book diligently now, and acquire a stock of 
knowledge ; for when years come upon you 
you will find that poring upon books will be 
but an irksome task." * 

'"= All , this is unguarded. Such remarks may have been 
true of Johnson, but they are not so of one out of a million 
others. The mind being preserved, healthy, vigorous, and 
diligent, will increase in knowledge as well as in judgment 
throughout its threescore and ten years, and beyond. 



1^4 Life of Samuel Johnsori, 



CHAPTER XIV. 

BoswELL thus describes briefly the Ubrary of 
Johnson as it was at this time : " It was con- 
tained in two garrets over his chambers, where 
Lintot, son of the celebrated bookseller of that 
name, had formerly his warehouse. I found 
a number of good books, but very dusty and in 
great confusion. The floor was strewed with 
manuscript leaves in Johnson's own hand- 
writing, which I beheld with a degree of venera- 
tion, supposing they perhaps might contain 
portions of " The Rambler," or of " Rasselas." I 
observed an apparatus for chemical experiments, 
of which Johnson all his life was very fond. 
The place seemed to be favorable for retire- 
ment and meditation." Johnson, when he 
wished to study without interruption, would 
steal up to his library without the knowledge 
of his servant, "for he would not allow his 
servant to say he was not at home when he 



Life of Samtiel Johnson. 155 

really was. ' A servant's strict regard for truth,' 
said he, * must be weakened by such a practice. 
A philosopher may know that it is merely a 
form of denial ; but few servants are such nice 
distinguishers. If I accustom a servant to tell 
a lie for me, have I not reason to apprehend 
that he will tell many lies for Jiiinselff " * 

On one of the bright days of this summer, 
and just before Bos well was to start on his 
European tour, he accompanies Johnson on a 
little excursion down the Thames to Green- 
wich. A boy rows " the sculler," and as they 
glide over the waters they converse meanwhile. 

Boswell. Do you really think a knowledge of 
the Greek and Latin languages is an essential 
requisite to a good education } 

Johnson. Most certainly, sir ; for those who 
know them have a very great advantage over 
those who do not. Nay, sir, it is wonderful 
what a difference learning makes upon people 

* This was all right ; but was it any better than the habit of 
honest old Prof. Stuart, of Andover, who, we believe, gave the 
whole world to understand plainly that during his prescribed 
hours of study he was accessible to no mortal ? 



156 Life of Samuel Johnson. 

even in the common intercourse of life, which 
does not appear to be much connected with it. 

B. And yet people go through the world 
very well, and carry on the business of life to 
good advantage without learning. 

J. Why, sir, that may be true in cases where 
learning cannot possibly be of any use. For 
instance, this boy rows us as well without learn- 
ing as if he could sing the song of Orpheus to 
the Argonauts, who were the first sailors. Boy, 
what would you give, my lad, to know about 
the Argonauts "i 

Boy. Sir, I would give what I have. 

J. (Much pleased.) Sir, (to Boswell,) a desire 
of knowledge is the natural feeling of mankind ; 
and every human being whose mind is not 
debauched will be willing to give all that he 
has to get knowledge. 

Arriving, they are greatly entertained with 
the immense number and variety of ships that 
were lying at anchor, and with the beautiful 
country on each side of the river. 

But even amid all this interesting scenery 



Life of Samuel yohnson. 157 

they persist in " holding high converse " on one 
and another topic. 

" I talked," says Boswell, " of preaching, and 
of the great success which those called Method- 
ists have." 

J. Sir, it is owing to their expressing 
themselves in a plain and familiar manner, 
which is the only way to do good to the com- 
mon people, and which clergymen of genius 
and learning ought to do from a principle of 
duty when it is suited to their congregations, 
a practice for which they will be praised by 
men of sense. To insist against drunkenness 
as a crime because it debases reason, the noblest 
faculty of man, would be of no service to the 
common people ; but to tell them that they 
may die in a fit of drunkenness, and show them 
how dreadful that would be, cannot fail to make 
a deep impression. Sir, when your Scotch 
clergy give up their homely manner, religion 
will soon decay in that country." 

Thus they passed the day — Johnson now 
criticising the hospital, and now the poetry of 



158 Life of Samuel Johns on. 

Buchanan, and now advising his friend as to his 
more appropriate course of study, when the 
great man, says Boswell, " rises into an animat- 
ing blaze of eloquence which roused every 
intellectual power in me to the highest pitch, 
but must have dazzled me so much that my 
memory could not preserve the substance of 
his discourse. He ran over the grand scale 
of human knowledge, advised me to select some 
particular branch to excel in, but to acquire a 
little of every kind." 

At evening they walked in the Park, com- 
paring its beautiful scenery with the pent-up 
city and its intellectual delights, and pronounced 
in favor of the latter. Then, at night, they 
returned up river to London, Boswell shivering 
amid the cold night air, and Johnson, mean- 
while, scolding and taunting him as if his 
shivering were a paltry effeminacy. 

They concluded the day at a coffee house 
"very socially." Boswell details to Johnson a 
particular account of his family and hereditary 
establishment, Johnson asking divers questions 



Life of Samuel Johnson. 159 

and making sundry calculations and recom- 
mendations ; and as Boswell describes the 
romantic seat of his ancestors, the sage listens 
with delight, " I must be there, sir," he says, 
" and we will live in the old castle, and if there 
is not a room in it remaining we will build 
one." The youth is highly flattered and elated, 
and could hardly indulge the hope that Auchin- 
leck* would indeed be so honored by Samuel 
Johnson. 

All this transpired on a certain Saturday, 
and, on the following Friday, Boswell was to 
start for the continent. As they parted that 
night, " I must see you out of England," said 
Johnson ; " I will accompany jou to Harwich." 
Boswell is much surprised at this unexpected 
and very great mark of his affectionate regard. 

And multitudes, we think, must have been 
surprised and deeply interested at contempla- 
ting this curious friendship of Samuel Johnson 
and James Boswell. The picture is certainly 
beautiful, and would be perfect were we im- 

* Name of Boswell's ancestral seat. 
10 



i6o Life of Samuel Johnson. 

pressed that the youth was worthy of such an 
alliance. But we cannot lose sight of the de- 
fects and foibles of this young man, Boswell, 
nor cease to wonder that a philosopher mature 
in age, of vast knowledge, magnificent powers, 
and of illustrious name, should consent to adopt 
as a son and take to his warm heart this fair- 
haired Scottish stranger. Apart from any per- 
sonal qualities or accomplishments, is it not a 
fair suspicion that Johnson's acknowledged def- 
erence to rank was considerably concerned with 
this curious partiality .•* James Boswell was 
prospectively one of the Lairds of Scotland, 
with an honored ancestry, hereditary estates, 
and a more or less numerous tenantry. Had 
all this no influence on the imagination of the 
great Johnson } And while Boswell felt him- 
self specially flattered by the friendship of the 
philosopher, was there no reciprocation of all 
this on the part of the latter .'* One can hardly 
help inquiring what, James Boswell being just 
what he was, his birth excepted, would have 
been his relation to Samuel Johnson } Would 



Life of Samuel Johnson. i6l 

these two, or would they not, have been thus 
wedded in mutual, intimate, and life-long fellow- 
ship ? If Boswell worshiped Johnson's great- 
ness, was there with Johnson no worship of 
Boswell's social position ? and did not the pres- 
tige of this, to no inconsiderable extent, go to 
cover, in Johnson's mind, faults and failings 
that otherwise had, to his discerning eye, been 
conspicuous and repulsive ? * 

Boswell now left London by stage-coach for 
Harwich to embark for the continent. He was 
accompanied, as promised, by Johnson, and, at 
a tavern where they dined, a lady, one of their 
fellow-passengers, was remarking that she had 
done her best to educate her children, and 
particularly that she had never suffered them 
to be a moment idle. Johnson replied, "I 
wish, madam, you would educate me too, for I 
have been an idle fellow all my life." " I am 
sure," said she, "you have not been idle." Nay, 

* Dr. Curry, in his admirable serial published a few years 
ago in the "National Magazine," presents a different theory of 
this strange friendship, a sort of theory of "opposites," which 
may have been the true one. 



1 62 Life of Samuel Johnson. 

madam," said Johnson, " it is very true ; and 
that gentleman there (pointing to Boswell) has 
been idle. He was idle at Edinburgh. His 
father sent him to Glasgow, where he continued 
to be idle ; and now he is going to Utrecht, 
where he will be as idle as ever." 

At Harwich the two friends parted, Boswell 
to sail for Utrecht, and Johnson to return to 
London. 



Life of Samuel yohnson. 163 



CHAPTER XV. 

It appears that Johnson was strong as a writer 
and conversationist ; but he was a strong eater 
as well. While at supper, the evening previous 
to Boswell's departure for the continent, the 
two conversed *' with uncommon satisfaction " 
on the subject of good eating. Johnson re- 
marked that some people had a foolish way of 
not minding, or pretending not to mind, what 
they eat, and adds, " For my part, I mind my 
belly very studiously and very carefully ; for I 
look upon it that he who does not mind his 
belly will hardly mind any thing else." 

Alluding to this conversation, Boswell pro- 
ceeds to tell us of Johnson's general manner of 
eating, and matters appertaining. 

" I never knew any man who relished good 
eating more than he did. When at table he 
was totally absorbed in the business of the 
moment ; his looks seemed riveted to his plate ; 



164 Life of Samuel yohison. 

nor would he, unless when in very high com- 
pany, say one word, or even pay the least atten- 
tion to what was said by others till he had 
satisfied his appetite, which was so fierce, and 
indulged with such intenseness, that while in 
the act of eating the veins of his forehead 
swelled, and generally a strong perspiration 
was visible. To those whose sensations were 
delicate this could not but be disgusting ; and 
it was doubtless not very suitable to the charac- 
ter of a philosopher, who should be distin- 
guished by self-command. But it must be 
owned that Johnson, though he could be rigidly 
abstemious, was not a temperate man either in 
eating or drinking. He could refrain, but he 
could not use moderately. He told me that 
he had fasted two days without inconvenience, 
and that he had never been hungry but once. 
They who beheld with wonder how much he 
eat upon all occasions when his dinner was 
to his taste, could not easily conceive what he 
must have meant by hunger ; and not only 
was he remarkable for the extraordinary quan- 



Life of Samuel Johnson. 165 

tity which he eat, but he was, or affected to be, 
a man of very nice discernment in the science 
of cookery. He used to descant critically on 
the dishes which had been at table where he 
had dined or supped, and to recollect very 
minutely what he had liked. . . . When invited 
to dine, even with an intimate friend, he was 
not pleased if something better than a plain 
dinner was not prepared for him. I have heard 
him say on such an occasion, 'This was a 
good dinner enough, to be sure ; but it was 
not a dinner to ask a man to.' On the other 
hand, he was wont to express with great glee 
his satisfaction when he had been entertained 
quite to his mind. One day, when he had 
dined with his neighbor and landlord in Bolt- 
court, Mr. Allen, the printer, whose old house- 
keeper had studied his taste in every thing, 
he pronounced this eulogy : ' Sir, we could 
not have had a better dinner had there been 
a synod of cooks.' " 

Apropos to all this, another familiar ac- 
quaintance remarks that "Johnson's notions 



i66 Life of Samuel JoJmson. 

about eating, however, were nothing less than 
delicate ; a leg of pork boiled till it dropped 
from the bone, a veal pie with plums and sugar, 
or the outside cut of a salt buttock of beef, 
were his favorite dainties. With regard to 
drink, his liking was for the strongest, as it 
was not the flavor but the effect he sought 
for and professed to desire ; and when Mrs, 
Piozzi first knew him he used to pour capillaire 
into his Port wine. For the last twelve years, 
however, he left off all fermented liquors. To 
make himself some amends, indeed, he took 
his chocolate liberally, pouring in large quan- 
tities of cream, or even melted butter ; and 
was so fond of fruit, that though he would eat 
seven or eight large peaches of a morning 
before breakfast began, and treated them with 
proportionate attention after dinner again, yet 
he has been heard to protest that he never 
had quite as much as he wished of wall-fruit 
except once in his life." 

And yet this same man, Johnson, was ready 
to ridicule those who sympathized with his 



Life of Samuel Johnson. 167 

views of eating. When one such observed 
that he who dressed a good dinner was a 
more excellent and a more useful member of 
society than he who wrote a good poem, Dr. 
Johnson said in reply, " In this opinion all the 
dogs in the town will join you." 

He used often to say '' that wherever the 
dinner is ill got up there is poverty, or there 
is avarice, or there is stupidity ; in short, the 
family is somehow grossly wrong ; for," con- 
tinued he, " a man seldom thinks with more 
earnestness of any thing than he does of his 
dinner ; and if he cannot get that well dressed, 
he should be suspected of inaccuracy in other 
things." 

A lady having asked him if he ever huffed 
his wife about his dinner, " So often," replied 
he, "that at last she called to me when about 
to say grace, and said, ' Nay, hold, Mr. John- 
son, and do not make a farce of thanking God 
for a dinner which in a few minutes you will 
pronounce not eatable." 

So much may suffice to record of Johnson's 



1 68 Life of Samuel Johnson. 

appetite, manner of eating, and sentiments gen- 
erally in respect to such matters. That he 
was a huge a7ti'maly as well as an intellectual 
giant, is well understood ; while the above quo- 
tations are presented as a matter of curiosity, 
and not at all as adding any dignity or beauty 
to his general character. Indeed, it was one 
of the contradictions so characteristic of John- 
son that when, in a certain mood, he would 
assume opposite sentiments in relation to the 
subject of the appetite, and talk loudly and 
with great contempt of people who, like him- 
self, were anxious to gratify their palates. The 
following sentiments, from the two hundred 
and sixth number of his " Rambler," will suffi- 
ciently illustrate the above statement, and will 
answer as a fitting conclusion of this not very 
agreeable chapter. He is ridiculing a fancied 
character whom he names Gulosulus, and de- 
scants thus : 

" By this method of life Gulosulus has so 
impressed on his imagination the dignity of 
feasting that he has no other topic of talk or 



Life of Smmiel Johnso7i. 169 

subject of meditation. His calendar is a bill 
of fare ; he measures the year by successive 
dainties. The only commonplaces of his mem- 
ory are his meals ; and if you ask him at 
what time an event happened, he considers 
whether he heard it after a dinner of turbot 
or venison. He knows, indeed, that those who 
value themselves upon sense, learning, or piety, 
speak of him with contempt ; but he considers 
them as wretches, envious or ignorant, who do 
not know his happiness, or wish to supplant 
him ; and declares to his friends that he is 
fully satisfied with his own conduct, since he 
has fed every day on twenty dishes, and yet 
doubled his estate." 



170 Life of Saimiel yohnson. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

One or two other peculiarities of Johnson may 
properly be noticed here. 

Of his tendencies to hypochondria mention 
has been already made. This disorder seems 
always to have been lurking about him, and at 
this time of his life (fifty-five) he experienced 
an attack far more severe than ordinary. He 
was so ill as, notwithstanding his remarkable 
love of company, to be entirely averse to 
society. One of his friends, on visiting him, 
found him " in a deplorable state, sighing, 
groaning, talking to himself, and restlessly 
walking from room to room. He then used 
this emphatical expression of the misery which 
he felt : * I would consent to have a limb ampu- 
tated to recover my spirits.' " 

This ''talking to himself" was another of 
his singularities, and was not at all confined, 
with him, to times of illness. He was fre- 



Life of Samuel yohnson. 171 

quently overheard uttering pious ejacula- 
tions, fragments of the Lord's prayer, and, 
now and then, passages from the classics, 
with which few men of his time were more 
familiar. 

Another of his peculiarities may be best 
stated in Bos well's own words : 

" It appeared to me some superstitious habit 
which he had contracted early, and from which 
he had never called upon his reason to disen- 
tangle him. This v/as his anxious care to go 
out or in at a door or passage by a certain 
point, or, at least, so as that either his right or 
•his left foot (I am not certain which) should 
constantly make the first actual movement when 
he came close to the door or passage. Thus I 
conjecture ; for I have, upon innumerable occa- 
sions, observed him suddenly stop, and then 
seem to count his steps with a deep earnest- 
ness ; and when he had neglected or gone wrong 
in this sort of magical movement I have seen 
him go back again, put himself in a proper 
posture to begin the ceremony, and, having 



1/2 Life of Samuel Johnson. 

gone through it, break from his abstraction, 
walk briskly on, and join his companion." 

Kindred to the above is the following 
anecdote : 

Johnson is on his way to dine with Sheridan, 
and must pass a certain number of stone posts. 
Says one who is watching him unperceived, 
" Upon every post, as he passed along, I could 
observe he deliberately laid his hand ; but 
missing one of them, when he had got at some 
distance he suddenly seemed to recollect him- 
self, and immediately returning back, carefully 
performed the accustomed ceremony, and re- 
sumed his former course, not omitting one till 
he gained the crossing. This, Mr. Sheridan 
assured me, however odd it might appear, was 
his constant practice, but why or wherefore he 
could not inform me." 

" When he walked the streets, what with the 
constant roll of his head, and the concomitant 
motion of his body, he appeared to make his 
way by that motion independent of his feet. 
That he was often much stared at while he ad- 



Life of Samtiel Johnson. 173 

vanced in this manner may easily be believed ; 
but it was not safe to make sport of one so 
robust as he was. Mr. Langton saw him one 
day, in a fit of absence, by a sudden start, 
drive the load off a porter's back, and walk for- 
ward briskly, without being conscious of what 
he had done. The porter was very angry, but 
stood still, and eyed the huge figure with much 
earnestness, till he was satisfied that his wisest 
course was to be quiet, and take up his burden 
again," 

Still other peculiarities characterized John- 
son's appearance and words. But Boswell 
must sketch for us here also : 

" While talking, or even musing, as he sat in 
his chair, he commonly held his head to one 
side toward his right shoulder, and shook it 
in a tremulous manner, moving his body back- 
ward and forward, and rubbing his left knee in 
the same direction with the palm of his hand. 
In the intervals of articulating he made various 
sounds with his mouth ; sometimes as if rumi- 
nating, or what is called chewing the cud, 



r74 Life of Samtiel Johnson. 

sometimes giving a half whistle, sometimes 
making his tongue play backward from the 
roof of his mouth as if clucking like a hen, and 
sometimes protruding it against his upper gums 
in front, as if pronouncing quickly under his 
breath, too, too, too ; all this accompanied, some- 
times, with a thoughtful look, but more fre- 
quently with a smile. Generally, when he had 
concluded a period, in the course of a dispute, 
by which time he was a good deal exhausted 
by violence and vociferation, he used to blow 
out his breath like a whale. This, I suppose, 
was a relief to his lungs, and seemed in him 
to be a contemptuous mode of expression, as if 
he had made the arguments of his opponent 
fly like chaff before the wind." 

Miss Reynolds, daughter of Sir Joshua Rey- 
nolds, gives us the following ludicrous descrip- 
tion of Johnson's " extraordinary gestures or 
antics with his hands and feet, particularly 
when passing over the threshold of a door, or 
rather before he would venture to pass through 
any doorway. On entering Sir Joshua's house 



Life of Samuel Johnsoji. 175 

with poor Mrs. Williams, a blind lady who lived 
with him, he would quit her hand, or else whirl 
her about on the steps as he whirled and twisted 
about to perform his gesticulations, and as 
soon as he had finished he would give a sud- 
den spring, and make such an extensive stride 
over the threshold, as if he was trying for a 
wager how far he could stride ; Mrs. Williams 
standing groping about outside the door, unless 
the servant took hold of her hand to conduct 
her in, leaving Dr. Johnson to perform at the 
parlor door much the same exercise over 
again." 

The same writer adds, "' But it was not only 
at the entrance of a door that he exhibited such 
strange maneuvers, but across a room, or in the 
street with company, he has stopped on a sud- 
den, as if he had recollected his task, and began 
to perform it there, gathering a mob round 
him ; and, when he had finished, would hasten 
to his companion (who probably had walked on 
before) with an air of great satisfaction that he 

had done his duty ! 

11 



176 Life of Samuel yohnson. 

'' On Sunday morning, as I was walking with 
him in Twickenham meadows, he began his 
antics both with his feet and hands ; with the 
latter as if he was holding the reins of a horse, 
like a jockey in full speed. But to describe the 
strange positions of his feet is a difficult task ; 
sometimes he would make the back part of his 
heels to touch, sometimes his toes, as if he was 
aiming at making the form of a triangle, at 
least the two sides of one. Though, indeed, 
whether these were his gestures on this par- 
ticular occasion in Twickenham meadows I do 
not recollect, it is so long since ; but I well 
remember that they were so extraordinary that 
men, women, and children gathered round him, 
laughing. At last we sat down on some logs 
of wood by the river side, and they nearly 
dispersed ; when he pulled out of his pocket 
Grotius de Veritate Religionis, over which he 
seesawed at such a violent rate as to excite the 
curiosity of some people at a distance to come 
and see what was the matter with him." 

Another lady, Madam D'Arblay, thus writes : 



Life of Samuel Johnson. 177 

" The Doctor is indeed very ill-favored ! Yet 
he has naturally a noble figure ; tall, stout, 
grand, and authoritative ; but he stoops horri- 
bly ; his back is quite round ; his mouth is con- 
tinually opening and shutting, as if he were 
chewing something ; he has a singular method 
of twirling his fingers and twisting his hands ; 
his vast body is in constant agitation, seesaw- 
ing backward and forward ; his feet are never 
a moment quiet ; and his whole great person 
looked often as if it were going to roll itself 
quite voluntarily from the chair to the floor." 

Macaulay's summing up very properly con- 
cludes the present chapter : 

" Johnson grown old, Johnson in the fullness 
of his fame, and in the enjoyment of a compe- 
tent fortune, is better known to us than any 
other man in history. Every thing about him, 
his coat, his wig, his figure, his face, his scrofula, 
his St. Vitus's dance, his rolling walk, his blink- 
ing eye, the outward signs which too clearly 
marked his approbation of his dinner, his in- 
satiable appetite for fish sauce and veal-pie with 



178 Life of Samuel Johnson. 

plums, his inextinguishable thirst for tea, his 
trick of touching the posts as he walked, his 
mysterious practice of treasuring up scraps of 
orange peel, his morning slumbers, his mid- 
night disputations, his contortions, his mutter- 
ings, his gruntings, his vigorous, acute, and 
ready eloquence, his sarcastic wit, his vehe- 
mence, his insolence, his fits of tempestuous 
rage, his queer inmates, (old Mr. Levett and 
blind Mrs. Williams, the cat Hodge, and the 
negro Frank,) all are as familiar to us as the 
objects by which we have been surrounded 
from childhood." 



Life of Samuel Johnson. 179 



CHAPTER XVII. 

A FEW months after Bos well's departure he 
receives a letter from Johnson, from which we 
give a few extracts, furnishing hints as appro- 
priate and useful to the present generation of 
students as they were a hundred years ago. 
After commending Boswell to the study of the 
civil law and the ancient languages, he thus 
proceeds : 

"At least resolve, while you remain in any 
settled residence, to spend a certain number of 
hours every day among your books. The dis- 
sipation of thought of which you complain is 
nothing more than the vacillation of a mind 
suspended between different motives, and chang- 
ing its direction as any motive gains or loses 
strength. If you can but kindle in your mind 
any strong desire, if you can but keep predomi- 
nant any wish for some particular excellence or 
attainment, the gusts of imagination will break 



i8o Life of Samuel Johnson. 

away, without any effect upon your conduct, 
and commonly without any traces left upon the 
memory. 

" There lurks, perhaps, in every human heart 
a desire of distinction, which inclines every 
man first to hope, and then to believe, that 
nature has given him something peculiar to 
himself." 

Then referring to a gentleman — a mutual ac- 
quaintance of theirs — as an illustration, he pro- 
ceeds : "Vacant to every object, and sensible 
of every impulse, he thought that all appear- 
ance of diligence would deduct something from 
the reputation of genius, and hoped that he 
should appear to attain amid all the ease of 
carelessness and all the tumults of diversion, 
that knowledge and those accomplishments 
which mortals of the common fabric obtain only 
by mute abstraction and solitary drudgery. He 
tried this scheme of life awhile, but was made 
weary of it by his sense and his virtue ; he then 
wished to return to his studies ; and finding 
long habits of idleness and pleasure harder to 



Life of Samuel yohnson. i8i 

be cured than he expected, still willing to retain 
his claim to some extraordinary prerogatives, 
resolved the common consequences of irregu- 
larity into an unalterable decree of destiny, and 
concluded that nature had originally formed 
him incapable of rational employment. 

" Let all such fancies, illusive and destructive, 
be banished henceforward from your thoughts 
forever. Resolve, and keep your resolution ; 
choose, and pursue your choice. If you spend 
this day in study, you will find yourself still 
more able to study to-morrow ; not that you 
are to expect that you shall, at once, obtain a 
complete victory. Depravity is not very easily 
overcome. Resolution will sometimes relax, 
and diligence will sometimes be interrupted ; 
but let no accidental surprise or deviation, 
whether short or long, dispose you to despond- 
ency. Consider these failings as incident to all 
mankind. Begin again where you left off, and 
endeavor to avoid the seducements that pre- 
vailed over you before." 

This may be the appropriate place to sub- 



1 82 Life of Samuel yohnson. 

join further sentiments and hints of a kindred 
character. 

To a student at Oxford Johnson writes : " I 
suppose you pursue your studies diligently, and 
diligence will seldom fail of success. Do not 
tire yourself so much with Greek one day as 
to be afraid of looking on it the next, but give 
it a certain portion of time, suppose four 
hours, and pass the rest of the day in Latin or 
English. I would have you learn French, and 
take in a literary journal once a month, which 
will accustom you to various subjects, and 
inform you what learning is going forward in 
the world. Do not omit to mingle some lighter 
books with those of more importance ; that 
which is read remisso animo is often of great 
use, and takes great hold of the remembrance. 
However, take what course you will, if you be 
diligent you will be a scholar." 



Life of Samtcel Johnson. 183 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

The religious character, expressions, and con- 
fessions of Johnson along this period of his life 
will be no uninteresting inquiry to such as 
would adequately appreciate the man. 

Let us glance, then, at a few inquiries of his 
touching this grave subject. It is the spring 
of 1764. 

" I have made no reformation ; I have lived 
totally useless, more sensual in thought, and 
more addicted to wine and meat. . . . My indo- 
lence, since my last reception of the sacrament, 
has sunk into grosser sluggishness, and my 
dissipation spread into wilder negligence. My 
thoughts have been clouded with sensuality ; 
and, except that from the beginning of this 
year, I have, in some measure, forborne excess 
of strong drink, my appetites have predominated 
over my reason. A kind of strange oblivion 
has overspread mc, so that I know not what 



1^4 Life of Samuel yohnson. 

has become of the last year, and perceive that 
incidents and intelUgence pass over me without 
leaving any impression. This is not the life to 
which heaven is promised." 

He earnestly resolves to amend. " I went to 
church ; came in at the first of the Psalms, and 
endeavored to attend the service, which I went 
through without perturbation. After sermon 
I recommended Tetty, in a prayer, by herself, 
and my father, mother, brother, and Bathurst, 
in another. I did it only once, so far as it 
might be lawful for me. ... I then prayed for 
resolution and perseverance to amend my life. 
I received [communed] soon. The communi- 
cants were many. At the altar it occurred to 
me that I ought to form some resolutions. I 
resolved in the presence of God, but without 
a vow, to repel sinful thoughts, to study eight 
hours daily, and, I think, to go to church every 
Sunday, and read the Scriptures. I gave a 
shilling ; and seeing a poor girl at the sacra- 
ment in a bedgown, gave her privately a crown, 
.... Came home and prayed." 



Life of Saimiel Johnson. 185 

" I have now spent fifty-five years in resolv- 
ing ; having, fi-om the earhest time, almost, 
that I can remember, been forming schemes of 
a better life. I have done nothing. The need 
of doing, therefore, is pressing, since the time 
of doing is short. O God, grant me to resolve 
aright, and to keep my resolutions, for Jesus 
Christ's sake. Amen. 

" I purpose again to partake of the blessed 
sacrament ; yet when I consider how vainly I 
have hitherto resolved, at this annual com- 
memoration of my Saviour's death, to regulate 
my life by his laws, I am almost afraid to renew 
my resolutions. 

"Since the last Easter I have reformed no 
evil habit ; my time has been unprofitably spent, 
and seems as a dream that has left nothing 
behind. My memory grows confused, and I 
know not how the days pass over me. Good 
Lord, deliver me ! " 

"I purpose to rise at eight, because, though 
I shall not yet rise early, it will be much earlier 
than I now rise, for I often lie till two ; and it 



1 86 Life of Samuel Johnson. 

will gain me much time, and tend to a conquest 
over idleness, and give time for other duties. I 
hope to rise yet earlier. 

" I invited home with me the man whose 
pious behavior I had for several years observed 
on this day, and found him a kind of Methodist ; 
full of texts, but ill-instructed. I talked to him 
with temper, and offered him twice wine, which 
he refused. . . . Let me not be prejudiced, 
hereafter, against the appearance of piety in 
mean persons, who, with indeterminate, and 
perverse or inelegant conversation, perhaps are 
doing all they can." 

He here speaks of "a kind of Methodist," 
and the consideration necessary in behalf of 
ignorant Christians. Let us directly here in- 
troduce another Methodist, and collate his 
religious experience with that of Johnson as 
intimated in the above entries, two experiences 
about the same time, and almost in the same 
neighborhood. The biographer of Fletcher of 
Madeley thus writes of him : " His closet was 
the favorite retirement, to which he constantly 



Life of Samuel Johnson. 187 

retreated whenever his pubUc duties allowed 
him a season of leisure. Here he was privily 
hidden, as in the presence of God. Here he 
would patiently wait for, or joyfully triumph 
in, the loving-kindness of the Lord. Here 
he would plunge himself into the depths of 
humiliation ; and from hence, at other seasons, 
as from another Pisgah, he would take a large 
survey of the vast inheritance which is reserved 
for the saints. . . . While it is here recorded 
that this faithful servant of God was accus- 
tomed to pray without ceasing, it must be noted 
at the same time, as a distinguishing part of 
his character, that in every tJmig he gave thanks. 
His heart was always in a grateful frame, and 
it was his chief delight to honor God by offer- 
ing him thanks and praise. Frequently, when 
he has been engaged in recounting the gracious 
dealings of God with respect to himself, or his 
signal favors conferred upon the Church, he 
has broken out in a strain of holy rejoicing : 
* O that men would therefore praise the Lord 
*for his goodness, and declare the wonders that 



1 88 Life of Samuel yohnson. 

he doeth for the children of men ! ' He con- 
sidered every unexpected turn of Providence as 
a manifestation of his Father's good pleasure, 
and discerned causes of thanksgiving, either 
obvious or latent, in every occurrence. Thus, 
either in the expectation or in the possession 
of promised mercies, he 'rejoiced evermore.' 
The immediate causes of his joy were manifold, 
public and private, spiritual and temporal ; but 
they were all swallowed up in the advance- 
ment of Christ's kingdom upon earth. This 
he considered as a subject of universal rejoic- 
ing, and for this he more especially desired to 
'praise the name of God with a song, and to 
magnify it with thanksgiving.' " 

Such are the two " experiences " — experiences 
contemporaneous, yet widely different. If the 
careful and thoughtful reader shall compare 
the two, must not his conclusion be that the 
former belongs to a man of weak and tremu- 
lous faith, and who trod the Christian path 
with faltering steps, while the latter was the 
experience of a man strong in the Lord and 



Life of Samuel yohnson. 189 

in the power of his might, and who followed 
the Master wholly ? 

In this connection we append the following 
judicious remarks of Johnson bearing upon the 
great Christian question : 

" For revealed religion," he said, " there was 
such historical evidence as, upon any subject 
not religious, would have left no doubt. Had 
the facts recorded in the New Testament been 
mere civil occurrences, no one would have 
called in question the testimony by which they 
are established. But the importance annexed 
to them, amounting to nothing less than the 
salvation of mankind, raised a cloud in our 
minds, and created doubts unknown upon any 
other subject." Of proofs to be derived from 
history, one of the most cogent, he seemed to 
think, was the opinion so well authenticated, 
and so long entertained, of a Deliverer that was 
to appear about that time. Among the typical 
representations, the sacrifice of the paschal 
lamb, in which no bone was to be broken, 
had early struck his mind. For the immediate 



1 90 Life of Samuel Johnson. 

life and miracles of Christ, such attestation as 
that of the Apostles, who all, except St. John, 
confirmed their testimony with their blood — 
such belief as these witnesses procured from 
a people best furnisjied with the means of 
judging, and least disposed to judge favor- 
ably — such an extension afterward of that be- 
lief over all the nations of the earth, though 
originating from a nation of all others most 
despised, would leave no doubt that the things 
witnessed were true, and were of a nature more 
than human. With respect to evidence. Dr. 
Johnson observed that we had not "such evi- 
dence that Cesar died in the Capitol as that 
Christ died in the manner related." 



Life of Samuel yohnson. 191 



CHAPTER XIX. 

In 1765, and at the age of fifty-six, Johnson 
was honored by Trinity College, Dublin, with 
the highest academical honors, receiving from 
that college the degree of Doctor of Laws. 
Ten years afterward he received the same 
honor from the University of Oxford. Hence- 
forth, therefore, he may claim, and very de- 
servedly, to be entitled Dr. yohnson, although 
it is asserted that he never, himself, used the 
title even after his Oxford degree. 

This same year was also distinguished by 
his introduction to the family of Mr. Thrale, 
" one of the rhost eminent brewers in England, 
and member of Parliament for the borough of 
Southwark." 

Johnson's introduction to this family tran- 
spired as follows : 

"Mr. Murphy, who was intimate with Mr. 

Thrale, having spoken very highly of Dr. John- 
12 



192 Life of Samuel Johnson. 

son, he was requested to make them acquainted. 
This being mentioned to Johnson he accepted 
of an invitation to dinner at Thrale's, and was 
so much pleased with his reception, both by 
Mr. and Mrs. Thrale, and they were so much 
pleased with him, that his invitations to their 
house were more and more frequent, till at 
last he became one of the family, and an 
apartment was aproppriated to him, both in 
their house at Southwark and in their villa at 
Streatham." 

Under these circumstances a slight sketch 
of these new friends of Johnson is proper to 
be given. Mr. Thrale, then, is described as 
" a man of excellent principles, a good scholar, 
well-skilled in trade, of a sound understanding, 
and of manners such as presented the charac- 
ter of a plain independent English 'squire." 
In person he was tall, well-proportioned, and 
stately. He evinced a noble and generous 
bearing, and " gave his wife a liberal indulgence 
both in the choice of their company and in 
the mode of entertaininj^; them." 



Life of Samuel yohnson. 193 

Mrs. Thrale is represented as short in stat- 
ure, yet well-rounded, and animated and spright- 
ly in her movements ; or, in the more concise 
language of Johnson, she was "short, plump, 
and brisk." 

She was a lady of lively talents improved by 
education, and Johnson testifies that "if she 
was not the wisest woman in the world, she was 
undoubtedly one of the wittiest." She shone 
in conversation, was a poetess of no mean pre- 
tensions, and was, at the time when Johnson 
entered the family, about twenty-seven years 
of age. 

"Nothing," says Boswell, "could be more 
fortunate for Johnson than this connection. 
He had at Mr. Thrale's all the comforts, and 
even luxuries, of life. His melancholy was di- 
verted, and his irregular habits lessened, by 
association with an agreeable and well-ordered 
family. He was treated with the utmost re- 
spect, and even affection. The vivacity of Mrs. 
Thrale's literary talk roused him to cheerful- 
ness and exertion, even when they were alone. 



194 Life of Samuel Johnson. 

But this was not often the case ; for he found 
here a constant succession of what gave him 
the highest enjoyment — the society of the 
learned, the witty, and the eminent in every 
way, who were assembled in numerous com- 
panies, called forth his wonderful powers, and 
gratified him with admiration, to which no man 
could be insensible." 

Another writer adds that he "formed at 
Streatham a room for a library, and increased 
by his recommendation the number of books. 
Here he was to be found (himself a library) 
when a friend called upon him ; and by him 
the friend was sure to be introduced to the 
dinner table, which Mrs. Thrale knew how to 
spread with the utmost plenty and elegance, 
and which was often adorned with such 
guests that to dine there was epulis accumbere 



diviLin!' * 



Here also, at Streatham, "he had oppor- 
tunities of exercise, and the pleasure of airings 
and excursions. In the exercise of a coach he 

* "To rccliuo at the feasts of the gods." 



Life of Samuel yohnso7i. 195 

had great delight ; it afforded him the indul- 
gence of indolent postures, and, as it seems, the 
noise of it assisted his hearing." 

What seems to us more strange, he was even 
prevailed on by Mr. Thrale "to join in the 
pleasures of the chase, in which he showed 
himself a bold rider ; for he either leaped, or 
broke through, the hedges that obstructed him. 
This he did, not because he was eager in the 
pursuit, but, as he said, to save the trouble of 
alighting and. remounting. He did not derive 
the pleasure or benefit from riding that many 
do ; it had no tendency to raise his spirits ; and 
he once said that in a journey on horseback 
he fell asleep." And, generally of the amuse- 
ment of hunting, he confesses as follows : " I 
have now learned by hunting to perceive that it 
is no diversion at all, nor ever takes a man out 
of himself for a moment. The dogs have less 
sagacity than I could have prevailed on myself 
to suppose, and the gentlemen often called to 
me not to ride over them. It is very strange 
and very melancholy, that the paucity of human 



196 Life of Samiiel Johnson. 

pleasures should persuade us ever to call hunt- 
ing one of them." * 

As Boswell suggests, this new arrangement 
of Johnson with the Thrales must haVe proved 
greatly pleasant and advantageous to him. To 
become a most welcome inmate in a family of 
worth, wealth, and refinement, where he was 
greatly loved and respected, amid books and 
literary friends, and where his social nature 
could be gratified to the utmost, and where 
he literally "fared sumptuously every day," all 
this presents to us a picture delightful to con- 
template. 

Exalted now to elevated literary distinction, 
and blessed, by his pension, with an assured 
competence, he, at the age of fifty-six, and after 

* The editor of this work is obhged to confess to a most per- 
fect sympathy with this sentiment. How it is that even sensi- 
ble and good men can find diversion in hunting and running 
down by horses and dogs, and wantonly killing, various in- 
noxious animals, seems one of the mysteries which find their 
explanation only in the depravity of our fallen nature. In the 
name of goodness and mercy, are there not abmidant modes of 
amusement without extoi-ting it from suffering, agony, and 
death ? 



Life of Saimiel yohnson. 197 

long years of struggle with poverty and disap- 
pointment, finds a welcome entrance, at his 
pleasure, within this elegant and peaceful asy- 
lum, as when a weary mariner, tossed over all 
seas and battered by many a storm, glides into 
some long-desired haven and finds rest at last. 
Surely it would seem that some entry of 
his should meet us here expressive of exalted 
thanksgiving. 

Instead of this, however, we have from Mrs. 
Thrale a notice which impresses us less pleas- 
antly. " Mr. Johnson liked his new acquaint- 
ance so much, however, that from that time 
he dined with us every Thursday through the 
winter, and in the autumn of the next year he 
followed us to Brighthelmstone, whence we 
were gone before his arrival ; so he was disap- 
pointed and enraged, and wrote us a letter 
expressive of anger, which we were desirous to 
pacify, and to obtain his company again if pos- 
sible. Mr. Murphy brought him back to us 
again very kindly." 

Improper and unreasonable anger has, in 



198 Life of Samuel yohnson. 

countless instances, resulted, providentially, in 
disastrous consequences. Who shall say that a 
specimen may not be discerned immediately on 
the occasion of his return to the Thrales ? For, 
soon, "his health, which he had always com- 
plained of, grew so exceedingly bad that he 
could not stir out of his room, in the court he 
inhabited, for many weeks together, I think 
months. . . . He often lamented to us the hor- 
rible condition of his mind, which, he said, was 
nearly distracted." 

He rallied at length, however ; and, under the 
assiduous and judicious care of Mrs. Thrale, 
was restored to his usual health. 

The reader will not understand here that Dr. 
Johnson m^ade his home exclusively at Mr. 
Thrale's. He had also his own establishment 
in London, of which we have the following pic- 
ture : " I returned to London in February, and 
found Dr. Johnson in a good house in John- 
son's Court, Fleet-street, in which he had ac- 
commodated Miss Williams with an apartment 
on the ground floor, while Mr. Levett occupied 



Life of Samuel Joh^isoii. 199 

his post in the garret ; his faithful Francis was 
still attending upon him. An upper room, 
which had the advantages of a good light and 
free air, he fitted up for a study, and furnished 
with books, chosen with so little regard to edi- 
tions or their external appearance as showed 
they were intended for use, and that he dis- 
dained the ostentation of learning. Here he was 
in a situation and circumstances that enabled 
him to enjoy the visits of his friends, and to 
receive them in a manner suitable to the rank 
and condition of many of them. A silver stand- 
ish, and some useful plate, which he had been 
prevailed on to accept as pledges of kindness 
from some who most esteemed him, together 
with furniture that would not have disgraced a 
better dwelling, banished those appearances of 
squalid indigence which, in his less happy days, 
disgusted those who came to see him." 



200 Life of Samnel yoJinson. 



CHAPTER XX. 

Simultaneously with the pleasant arrange- 
ment described in the preceding chapter, Dr. 
Johnson seems to have given the world his 
edition of Shakspeare. As we have already 
seen, this work was commenced nine years be- 
fore ; when subscriptions were taken for it and 
paid for, with the understanding, of course, that 
the new edition would be promptly completed 
and issued. But, contrary to the reasonable 
expectations of his friends, this edition of 
" Shakspeare' s Dramatic Works, with Notes " 
proved a drudgery instead of a pleasure to 
Johnson. And thus the matter lingered along 
for years, and might have lingered still longer 
had he not been sharply stirred up by the knife 
of Churchill's satire, as already quoted on pages 
112, 113. This satire, if it had no other effect, 
yet brought to remembrance that his edition of 
Shakspeare had long been due. " His friends 



Life of Samuel yohnson. 201 

took the alarm, and, by all the arts of reason- 
ing and persuasion, labored to convince him 
that, having taken subscriptions for a work in 
which he had made no progress, his credit was 
at stake. He confessed he was culpable, and 
promised, from time to time, to begin a course 
of such reading as was necessary to qualify 
him for the work ; this was no more than he 
had formerly done in an engagement with Cox- 
eter, to whom he had bound himself to write 
the life of Shakspeare ; but he never could be 
prevailed on to begin it, so that even now it 
was questioned whether his promises were to 
be relied on. For this reason Sir Joshua Rey- 
nolds, and some other of his friends who were 
more concerned for his reputation than himself 
seemed to be, contrived to entangle him by a 
wager, or some other pecuniary engagement, to 
perform his task by a certain time." 

Johnson's comments upon the great dramatist 
were meager and barely respectable. His re- 
searches were not so ample and his investiga- 
tions so acute as they might have been. In 



202 Life of Samuel yohnson. 

fact, in view of the prodigious amount of Shaks- 
pearean literature brought out in the last and 
the present centuries, the work of Johnson 
dwindles into insignificance. Even a hundred 
years ago, when it first appeared it could have 
added but little to his fame, while a late critic 
affirms its value to be in inverse proportion to 
the reputation of its editor. 

Boswell is highly elated in detailing what he 
terms one of the most remarkable incidents of 
Johnson's life, and which occurred about the time 
of which we are writing. This was nothing 
more nor less than Johnson's being honored with 
an interview with his majesty, George III, It 
appears that the philosopher was in the habit of 
visiting the library at the Queen-house. The 
librarian was careful to afford him every accom- 
modation that could contribute to his ease and 
convenience while there, so that this became 
to him a very agreeable place of resort for his 
leisure hours. 

" His Majesty, having been informed of his 
occasional visits, was pleased to signify a desire 



Life of Samuel Johnson. 203 

that he should be told when Dr. Johnson came 
next to the library. Accordingly, the next 
time that Johnson did come, as soon as he 
was fairly engaged with a book, on which, 
while he sat by the fire, he seemed quite in- 
tent, Mr. Barnard, the librarian, stole round to 
the apartment where the King was, and, in 
obedience to his Majesty's commands, mentioned 
that Dr. Johnson was then in the library. His 
Majesty said he was at leisure, and would go to 
him ; upon which Mr. Barnard took one of the 
candles that stood on the King's table and 
lighted his Majesty through a suite of rooms, 
till they came to a private door into the library, 
of which his Majesty had the key. Being 
entered, Mr. Barnard stepped forward hastily 
to Dr. Johnson, who was still in a profound 
study, and whispered to him, " Sir, here is the 
King." Johnson started up and stood still. 
His Majesty approached him, and at once was 
courteously easy." 

Inasmuch as we republicans are but little 
accustomed to *' stand before kings " and hear 



204 Life of Samuel yoluiso7i. 

them converse, let us listen to the veritable 
dialogue that occurred in this library between 
George III. and Dr. Johnson : 

King. I understand that you come sometimes 
to the library. I hear, Doctor, that you have 
lately visited Oxford ; are you fond of going 
thither .? 

Johnson. I am, indeed, fond of going to 
Oxford sometimes ; but I am likewise glad to 
come back again. 

K. What are they doing at Oxford } 

J. I cannot much commend their diligence ; 
but they have mended in some respects, for 
they have put their press under better regula- 
tions, and are at this time printing Polybius.* 

K. Which of the two libraries is the best, 
that of Oxford or Cambridge .•* 

J, I believe the Bodleian is larger than any 
they have at Cambridge. But I hope, whether 
we have more books or not than they have at 
Cambridge, we shall make as good use of them 
as they do. 

*One of tlie Greek historians, who died B. C. 122. 



Life of Samuel JoJinson. 205 

K. Is the library of All-Souls or Christ 
Church, the largest ? 

J. All-Souls Library is the largest we have 
except the Bodleian. 

K. Are you writing any thing now, Doctor ? 

J. I am not ; I have pretty well told the world 
what I know, and must now read to acquire 
more knowledge. 

K. I do not think you borrow much from 
any body. 

/. I think I have already done my part as a 
writer. 

K. I should have thought so too if you had 
not written so well. ... I suppose you must 
have read a great deal. Doctor } 

J. I think more than I read. I read a great 
deal in the early part of my life ; but having 
fallen into ill-health, I have not been able to 
read much compared with others. For example, 
I have not read much compared with Dr. 
Warburton. 

K. Dr. Warburton is a man of such general 
knowledge that you could scarce talk with him 



206 Life of Saimtel yohn^oii. 

on any subject on which he is not qualified to 
speak. His learning resembles Garrick's act- 
ing in its universality. What do you think, 
Dr. Johnson, of the controversy between War- 
burton and Lowth } 

J. Warburton has the most general, most 
scholastic learning ; Lowth is the more correct 
scholar. I do not know which of them calls 
names the best. 

K. I am of the same opinion. You do not 
think, then. Dr. Johnson, that there was much 
argument in the case } 

e/! I do not think there was. 

K. Why, truly, when it comes to calling 
names, argument is pretty well at an end. 
What do you think. Doctor, of Lord Lyttle- 
ton's History just published .-' 

J. I think his style pretty good, but that 
he has blamed Henry H. rather too much. 

K. Why, they seldom do these things by 
halves. 

J. No, sir, not to kings. But for those who 
speak worse of kings than they deserve I can 



Life of Sanmel JoJmson. 207 

find no excuse ; I can more easily conceive 
how some might speak better of them than 
they deserve without any ill intention. 

K. What do you think of Dr. Hill .? 

J. He is an ingenious man, but has no 
veracity. Notwithstanding, Dr. Hill is a very 
curious observer ; and if he would have been 
contented to tell the world no more than he 
knew, he might have been a very considerable 
man, and needed not to have recourse to such 
mean expedients to raise his reputation. 

They conversed of several other matters, and 
during the whole interview "Johnson talked 
to his Majesty with profound respect, but still 
in his firm, manly manner, with a sonorous 
voice, and never in that subdued tone which is 
commonly used at the levee and in the drawing- 
room. After the King withdrew, "Johnson 
showed himself highly pleased with his Ma- 
jesty's conversation and gracious behavior." 
To one he remarked : " Sir, they may talk of 
the King as they will, but he is the finest 

gentleman I have ever seen." To another : 
18 



2o8 Life of Samuel Johnson. 

" Sir, his manners are those of as fine a gen- 
tleman as we may suppose Louis XIV. or 
Charles II." 

Goldsmith, after listening to Johnson's report 
of this famous conversation, sprung from his 
seat, and advancing to him exclaimed, "Well, 
you acquitted yourself in this conversation 
better than I should have done ; for I should 
have bowed and stammered through the whole 
of it." So it was that Dr. Johnson was in 
the presence of four of the English monarchs. 
Queen Anne, George II., George III., and 
George IV., the last of whom he saw in child- 
hood, and conversed with him. 



Life of Samuel yohnson. 209 



CHAPTER XXI. 

It is Sunday, October 18, 1767, and Catharine 
Chambers is in her last sickness, and will be 
buried in three brief weeks. She has been a 
faithful servant in the Johnson family for forty- 
three years, and buried the father, brother, 
and mother of Samuel, and he calls her his 
** dear old friend ;" and this morning they are 
to part for ever. He proposes to her that, 
under these solemn circumstances, he would, 
**if she is willing, say a short prayer beside 
her." She greatly desires it, and he kneels 
beside her and prays thus : 

" Almighty and most merciful Father, whose 
loving kindness is over all thy works, behold, 
visit, and relieve this thy servant, who is 
grieved with sickness. Grant that the sense 
of her weakness may add strength to her faith, 
and seriousness to her repentance. And grant 
that by the help of thy Holy Spirit, after the 



2IO Life of Sarmiel Johnson. 

pains and labors of this short Hfe, we may all 
obtain everlasting happiness, through Jesus 
Christ our Lord, for whose sake hear our 
prayers. Amen." 

And Amen ! to what there is of it. But, 
alas ! is this the sort of prayer at the dying 
bed of this or any other person "^ Will stiff- 
ness and prettiness and stark formality edify 
the dying } It seems ungracious to criti- 
cise a prayer, but it must be attempted for 
once. 

"Almighty and most merciful Father." 
Our Father would have been better up in that 
chamber, and with those two. " Whose loving- 
kindness is over all thy works." Yes ; but 
too ceremonious for the occasion, and better 
omitted. "Behold, visit, and relieve." Too 
many words ; the poor sick woman is too weak 
to take them all in. The one dear word Hdp ! 
would have comprised them all. "This thy 
servant." Too many words again, and too much 
of helping God to know who is meant, and 
too dreadfully cold withal. Here, again, one 



Life of Samuel yohnson. 21 1 

word, Catharine, would be better. Father, help 
Catharine, "who is grieved with sickness." 
Aj, and the Lord knows it, and not a breath 
is needed to tell him. " Grant that the sense 
of her weakness may add strength to her faith," 
too pretty, too antithetical, too rhetorical, too 
Johnsonian ; '' and seriousness to her repent- 
ance," still too formal and too unintelligible. 
The poor dying woman failed to take in the 
idea, and she is too near eternity to care for 
musical and well-rounded sentences. Increase 
her faith and deepen her repentance would do 
full as well. And this is all that the man 
upon his bended knees can afford for her 
exclusively. All the rest of the prayer is but 
a generality of the Prayer book — good, to be 
sure, but no more suitable for the dying 
Catharine than for ten thousand times ten 
thousand of the living, energizing, rejoicing 
ones. And so he prints the farewell kiss, 
passes on, and retires and leaves her for 
ever. The Syrophenician woman prayed more 
from the heart's depths, and, therefore, prayed 



212 Life of Samuel yohnson. 

appropriately and successfully, Lord, have 
mercy and heal my daughter. 

In this connection let us take a glimpse of 
Johnson and his devotional life as it was several 
years later. 

Easter-day, 1776, he offers the following 
prayer : " Almighty and merciful Father, who 
seest all our miseries and knowest all our 
necessities, look down upon me and pity me ! 
Defend me from the violent incursion of evil 
thoughts, and enable me to form and keep such 
resolutions as may conduce to the discharge of 
the duties which thy providence shall appoint 
me ; and so help me by thy Holy Spirit, that 
my heart may surely there be fixed where true 
joys are to be found, and that I may serve thee 
with pure affection and a cheerful mind ! Have 
mercy upon me, O God, have mercy upon me ! 
Years and infirmities oppress me ; terror and 
anxiety beset me ! Have mercy upon me, my 
Creator and my Judge. In all dangers protect 
me ; in all perplexities relieve and free me ; and 
so help me by thy Holy Spirit that I may now so 



Life of Samuel Johnson. 213 

commemorate the death of thy Son our Saviour 
Jesus Christ as that, when this short and pain- 
ful Hfe shall have an end, I may, for his sake, be 
received to everlasting happiness. Amen ! " 

Easter-day three years after, and when 
seventy years of age, he writes thus : " I rose 
about half an hour after nine, transcribed the 
prayer written last night, and, by neglecting 
to count time, sat too long at breakfast, so 
that I came to church at the First Lesson, I 
attended the Litany pretty well ; but in the 
pew could not hear the Communion Service, 
and missed the Prayer for the Church Militant. 
Before I went to the altar I prayed the Occa- 
sional Prayer. At the altar I commended my 
departed friends, and again prayed the prayer ; 
I then prayed the Collects, and again my own 
prayer, by memory. I left out a clause. I then 
received, I hope with earnestness ; and while 
others received, sat down ; but thinking that 
posture, though usual, improper, I rose and 
stood. I prayed again in the pew, but with 
what prayer I have forgotten. 



214 Life of Samuel yoJmson, 

"When I used the Occasional Prayer at the 
altar I added a general purpose — to avoid idle- 
ness. I gave two shillings to the plate. 

" Before I went I used, I think, my prayer, 
and endeavored to calm my mind. After my 
return I used it again, and the collect for the 
day. Lord, have mercy upon me ! " 



Life of Smmicl Johnson, 215 



CHAPTER XXII. 

Dr. Johnson is now (1769) sixty years of age; 
and it is interesting to note his views, at this 
time, on the general subject of religion. 

Mr. Boswell asks him if there is not less 
religion in the nation now than formerly. 

Johnson. I don't know, sir, that there is. 

Boswell. For instance, there used to be a 
chaplain in every great family, which we do not 
find now. 

J. Neither do you find any of the state serv- 
ants which great families used formerly to have. 
There is a change of modes in the whole depart- 
ment of life. 

Afterward they converse of Romanism. 

B. So, sir, you are no great enemy to the 
Roman Catholic religion } 

J. No more, sir, than to the Presbyterian 
religion. 

B. You are joking. 



2i6 Life of Samuel yohnson. 

J. No, sir ; I really think so. Nay, sir, of 
the two, I prefer the Popish. 

B. How so, sir ? 

J. Why, sir, the Presbyterians have no 
Church, no apostolical ordination. 

B, And do you think that absolutely essen- 
tial, sir.? 

J. Why, sir, as it was an apostolical institu- 
tion, I think it is dangerous to be without it. 
And, sir, the Presbyterians have no public 
worship ; they have no form of prayer in which 
they know they are to join. They go to hear a 
man pray, and are to judge whether they will 
join with him. 

B. But, sir, their doctrine is the same with 
that of the Church of England. Their Confes- 
sion of Faith and the Thirty-nine Articles con- 
tain the same points, even the doctrine of pre- 
destination. 

J. Why, yes, sir ; predestination was a part 
of the clamor of the times, so it is mentioned 
in our Articles, but with as little positiveness as 
could be. 



Life of Sarmiel yohnson. 217 

B. Is it necessary, sir, to believe all the 
Thirty-nine Articles ? 

J. Why, sir, 4hat is a question which has 
been much agitated. Some have thought it 
necessary that they should all be believed ; 
others have considered them to be only articles 
of peace ; that is to say, you are not to preach 
against them. 

B. It appears to me, sir, that predestination, 
or what is equivalent to it, cannot be avoided 
if we hold a universal prescience in the 
Deity. 

J. Why, sir, does not God, every day, see 
things going on without preventing them 1 

B. True, sir, but if a thing be certainly fore- 
seen it must be fixed, and cannot happen other- 
wise ; and if we apply this consideration to the 
human mind there is no free-will, nor can I see 
how prayer can be of any avail. 

They converse further. 

B. What do you think, sir, of purgatory, as 
believed by the Roman Catholics } 

J. Why, sir, it is a very harmless doctrine. 



2i8 Life of Samuel Johtson, 

They are of opinion that the generaUty of man- 
kind are neither so obstinately wicked as to 
deserve everlasting punishment, nor so good as 
to merit being admitted into the society of 
blessed spirits ; and, therefore, that God is 
graciously pleased to allow of a middle state, 
where they may be purified by certain degrees 
of suffering. You see, sir, there is nothing 
unreasonable in this. 

B. But then, sir, their masses for the 
dead } 

J. Why, sir, if it be once established that there 
are souls in purgatory, it is as proper to pray 
for tJieni as for our brethren of mankind who 
are yet in this life. 

B. The idolatry of the mass ? 

J. Sir, there is no idolatry in the mass. 
They believe God to be there, and they adore 
him. 

B. The worship of saints ? 

J. Sir, they do not worship saints, they in- 
voke them ; they only ask their prayers, I am 
talking all this time of the doctfincs of the 



Life of Samuel yohnson. 219 

Church of Rome. I grant you that in practice 
purgatory is made a lucrative imposition, and 
that the people do become idolatrous as they 
recommend themselves to the tutelary protec- 
tion of particular saints. I think their giving 
the sacrament only in one kind is criminal, 
because it is contrary to the express institution 
of Christ, and I wonder how the Council of 
Trent admitted it. 

B. Confession } 

J, Why, I don't know but that is a good 
thing. The Scripture says, * Confess your 
faults one to another ;' and the priests confess 
as well as the laity. Then it must be con- 
sidered that their absolution is only upon re- 
pentance, and often upon penance also. You 
think your sins may be forgiven without pen- 
ance upon repentance alone. 

Boswell asserts that this is an accurate record. 
"But it is not improbable," he subjoins, "that 
if one had taken the other side he might have 
reasoned differently." 

It seems to be true, however, that Johnson 



220 Life of Samuel Johnson. 

had no inconsiderable respect for the Roman 
Church. He was heard to say that "a man 
who is converted from Protestantism to Popery 
may be sincere ; he parts with nothing ; he is 
only superadding to what he already had. 
But a convert from Popery to Protestantism 
gives up so much of what he has held as sacred 
as any thing that he retains — there is so much 
laceration of mind in such a conversion — that 
it can hardly be sincere and lasting." "John- 
son here," says one, "forgets Latimer, Ridley, 
Hooper, and all those of all nations who have 
renounced Popery." 

Bos well afterward introduced the subject of 
death. 

Boswell. David Hume said to me, he was 
no more uneasy to think he should 7iot be after 
this life, than that he had not been before he 
began to exist. 

Johnson. Sir, if he really thinks so his per- 
ceptions are disturbed, he is mad ; if he does 
not think so, he lies. He may tell you he holds 
his finger in the flame of a candle without feel- 



Life of Saimcel yohnson. 221 

ing pain, would you believe him ? When he 
dies, he at least gives up all he has. 

B. Foote, sir, told me that when he was 
very ill he was not afraid to die. 

J. It is not true, sir. Hold a pistol to 
Foote's breast, or to Hume's breast, and 
threaten to kill them, and you'll see how they 
behave. 

B. But may we not fortify our minds for 
the approach of death } 

J. No, sir, let it alone. It matters not how 
a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying 
is not of importance, it lasts so short a time. 
He added, with an earnest look : " A man 
knows it must be so, and submits. It will do 
him no good to whine." 

This conversation on death threw Johnson 
into a state of great agitation, for it was always 
a subject on which he conversed with much 
reluctance. In a subsequent interview they 
talked of the future state. Boswell carefully 
leads his friend to the subject, and the follow- 
ing dialogue occurs : 



222 Life of Samuel yoJmson. 

J. Why, sir, the happiness of an unem- 
bodied spirit will consist in a consciousness 
of the favor of God, in the contemplation of 
truth, and in the possession of felicitating 
ideas. 

B. But, sir, is there any harm in our form- 
ing to ourselves conjectures as to the particulars 
of our happiness, though the Scripture has said 
but very little on the subject ? We know not 
what we shall be. 

J. Sir, there is no harm. What philosophy 
suggests to us on this topic is probable ; what 
Scripture tells us, is certain. Dr. Henry More 
has carried it as far as philosophy can. You 
may buy both his theological and philosophical 
works in two volumes folio for about eight 
shillings. 

B. One of the most pleasing thoughts is, 
that we shall see our friends again. 

J. Yes, sir ; but you must consider that 
when we are become purely rational many of 
our friendships will be cut off. Many friend- 
ships are formed by a community of sensual 



Life of Samuel yohison. 223 

pleasures ; all these will be cut off. We form 
many friendships with bad men because they 
have agreeable qualities, and they can be use- 
ful to us ; but after death they can no longer 
be of use to us. We form many friendships 
by mistake, imagining people to be different 
from what they really are. After death we 
shall see every one in a true light. Then, sir, 
they talk of our meeting our relations ; but 
then all relationship is dissolved, and we shall 
have no regard for one person more than an- 
other but for their real value. However, we 
shall either have the satisfaction of meeting 
our friends, or be satisfied without meeting 
them. 

B. Yet, sir, we see in Scripture that Dives 
still retained an anxious concern about his 
brethren. 

J. Why, sir, we must either suppose that 

passage to be metaphorical, or hold, with many 

divines and all the Purgatorians, that departed 

souls do not all at once arrive at the utmost 

perfection of which they are capable. 
14 



^^ Life of Samuel Johnsoji. 

B. I think, sir, that is a very rational sup- 
position. 

J. Why yes, sir ; but we do not know it is 
a true one. There is no harm in believing it ; 
but you must not compel others to make it 
an article of faith, for it is not revealed. 

B. Do you think, sir, it is wrong in -a man 
who holds the doctrine of Purgatory to pray 
for the souls of his deceased friends } 

J. Why no, sir. 

B. I have been told that in the Liturgy of 
the Episcopal Church of Scotland there was 
a form of prayer for the dead. 

J. Sir, it is not in the Liturgy which Laud 
framed for tho Episcopal Church of Scotland. 
If there is a Liturgy older than that I should 
be glad to see it. 

B. As to our employment in a future state 
the sacred writings say little. The Revelation, 
however, of St. John gives us many ideas, and 
particularly mentions music. 

J. Why, sir, ideas must be given you by 
means of something which you know ; and as 



Life of Samuel Johnson. 225 

to music, there are some philosophers and di- 
vines who have maintained that we shall not be 
spiritualized to such a degree but that some- 
thing of matter, very much refined, will remain. 
In that case music may make a part of our 
future felicity. 



226 Life of Samuel yohnson. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

Of Dr. Johnson, at this period of his Hfe, the 
following summary sketch, as given by Boswell, 
will not be without interest to the reader. 

"Let my readers, then, remember that he 
was a sincere and zealous Christian, of high 
Church of England and monarchical principles, 
which he would not tamely suffer to be ques- 
tioned ; steady and inflexible in maintaining 
the obligations of piety and virtue, both from a 
regard to the order of society, and from a ven- 
eration for the Great Source of all order ; cor- 
rect, nay, stern, in his taste ; hard to please, and 
easily offended ; impetuous and irritable in his 
temper, but of a most humane and benevolent 
heart ; having a mind stored with a vast and 
various collection of learning and knowledge, 
which he communicated with peculiar perspi- 
cuity and force, in rich and choice expression. 
He united a most logical head with a most fer- 



Life of Samuel yohnson. 227 

tile imagination, which gave him an extraordi- 
nary advantage in arguing ; for he could reason 
close or wide, as he saw best for the moment. 
He could, when he chose it, be the greatest 
sophist that ever wielded a weapon in the 
schools of declamation, but he indulged this 
only in conversation ; for he owned he some- 
times talked for victory ; he was too conscien- 
tious to make error permanent and pernicious 
by deliberately writing it. He was conscious 
of his superiority. He loved praise when it was 
brought to him, but he was too proud to seek 
for it. He was somewhat susceptible of flattery. 
His mind was so full of imagery that he might 
liave been perpetually a poet. It has been 
often remarked that in his poetical pieces, 
which it is to be regretted are so few, because 
so excellent, his style is easier than in his prose. 
There is deception in this ; it is not easier, but 
better suited to the dignity of verse ; as one 
may dance with grace whose motions, in ordi- 
nary walking in the common step, are awkward. 
He had a constitutional melancholy, the clouds 



228 Life of Samuel yohnson. 

of which darkened the brightness of his fancy, 
and gave a gloomy cast to his whole course of 
thinking. Yet, though grave and awful in his 
deportment, when he thought it necessary or 
proper he frequently indulged himself in pleas- 
antry and sportive sallies. He was prone to 
superstition, but not to credulity. Though his 
imagination might incline him to a belief of the 
marvelous and the mysterious, his vigorous 
reason examined the evidence with jealousy. 
He had a loud voice, and a slow, deliberate 
utterance, which, no doubt, gave some addi- 
tional weight to the sterling metal of his con- 
versation. Lord Pembroke said once to me at 
Wilton, with a happy pleasantry and some truth, 
that Dr. Johnson's sayings would not appear so 
extraordinary were it not for his bow-wow way. 
But I admit the truth of this only on some 
occasions. The ''Messiah," played upon the 
Canterbury organ, is more sublime than when 
played upon an inferior instrument ; but very 
slight music will seem grand when conveyed to 
the ear through that majestic medium. While, 



Life of S aimed yohnsoii. 229 

therefore, Dr. Johnson's sayings are read, let 
his manner be taken along with them. Let it, 
however, be observed that the sayings them- 
selves are generally great ; that, though he 
might be an ordinary composer at times, he 
was, for the most part, a Handel. His person 
was large, robust, I may say approaching to' 
the gigantic, and grown unwieldy from corpu- 
lency. His countenance was naturally of the 
cast of an ancient statue, but somewhat dis- 
figured by the scars of that "evil" which, it 
was formerly imagined, the royal touch could 
cure. He was now in his sixty-fourth year, 
and was become a httle dull of hearing. His 
sight had always been somewhat weak ; yet, so 
much does mind govern, and even supply, the 
deficiency of organs, that his perceptions were 
uncommonly quick and accurate. His head, 
and sometimes also his body, shook with a kind 
of motion like the effect of a palsy ; he appeared 
to be frequently disturbed by cramps, or con- 
vulsive contractions, of the nature of that dis- 
temper called St. Vitus's dance. He wore a 



230 Life of Samuel Johnsojt. 

full suit of plain brown clothes, with twisted 
hair-buttons of the same color, a large bushy 
grayish wig, a plain shirt, black worsted stock- 
ings, and silver buckles. Upon this tour,* 
when journeying, he wore boots, and a very 
wide brown cloth greatcoat, with pockets which 
might have almost held the two volumes of his 
folio dictionary, and he carried in his hand a 
large English oak stick." 

* Tour to the Western Islands. 



Life of Scpmicl yohnson. 231 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

In the autumn of this year Johnson accom- 
panied Boswell on a tour among the Hebrides. 
This excursion appears to have been contem- 
plated for a considerable time by Boswell, who 
was much interested in enticing Johnson into 
Scotland with a view of presenting him to 
various interesting scenes and persons of that 
country. 

He reaches Edinburgh about the middle of 
August, and is, of course, the guest of Mr. Bos- 
well, who hastens to salute him on his arrival 
at the hotel. " I went to him directly. He 
embraced me cordially, and I exulted in the 
thought that I now had him actually in Cale- 
donia." Boswell adds, " My wife had tea ready 
for him, which it is well known he delighted to 
drink at all hours. He showed much com- 
placency upon finding that the mistress of the 
house was so attentive to his singular habit ; 



232 Life of Saimiel yohnson. 

and as no man could be more polite when he 
chose to be so, his address to her was most 
courteous and engaging, and his conversation 
soon charmed her into a forgetfulness of his 
external appearance." " Mr. Johnson," this 
enthusiast continues, " was pleased with my 
daughter Veronica, then a child of about four 
months old. She had the appearance of listen- 
ing to him. His motions seemed to her to be 
intended for her amusement ; and when he 
stopped she fluttered, and made a little infan- 
tine noise, and a kind of signal for him to 
begin again. She would be held close to him, 
which was a proof, from simple nature, that his 
figure was not horrid. Her fondness for him 
endeared her still more to me, and I declared 
she should have five hundred pounds of addi- 
tional fortune." 

At Edinburgh, Dr. Johnson, through the 
sprightly services of Boswell, was introduced 
to a number of distinguished men, as Robert- 
son the historian. Sir William Forbes, and 
others. 



Life of Saimicl JoJuisoii. 233 

With his Edinburgh friends he seems to 
have enjoyed several pleasant interviews ; but 
a slight report of one of their conversations 
only must suffice. Johnson was remarking of 
Burke that he had a great variety of knowl- 
edge, store of imagery, and copiousness of 
language. Robertson adds, that he had wit, 
too. 

" No, sir," replies Johnson ; " he never suc- 
ceeds there. 'Tis low ; 'tis conceit. I used to 
say, Burke never once made a good joke. What 
I most envy Burke for is, his being constantly 
the same. He is never what we call Jmindnim ; 
never unwilling to begin to talk, nor in haste to 
leave off. 

Boswell. Yet he can listen. 

Johnson. No ; I cannot say he is good at 
that. So desirous is he to talk, that if one is 
speaking at this end of the table he'll speak to 
somebody at the other end. Burke, sir, is such 
a man that if you met him for the first time in 
the street where you were stopped by a drove 
of oxen, and you and he stepped aside to take 



234 Life of Samuel Johnson. 

shelter but for five minutes, he'd talk to you in 
such a manner that when you parted you would 
say, This is an extraordinary man. Now you 
may be long enough with me without finding 
any thing extraordinary. 

After some further remarks^ Johnson added 
that he could not understand how a man could 
apply to one thing and not another. 

Robertson. One man has more judgment, 
another more imagination. 

J. No, sir ; it is only one man has more mind 
than another. He may direct it differently ; 
he may, by accident, see the success of one 
kind of study, and take a desire to excel in it. 
I am persuaded that had Sir Isaac Newton 
applied to poetry he would have made a very 
fine epic poem. I could as easily apply to law 
as to tragic poetry. 

B. Yet, sir, you did apply to tragic poetry, 
not to law. 

J. Because, sir, I had not money to 
study law. Sir, the man who has vigor 
may walk to the east just as well as to the 



Life of Sanmcl yohnson. 235 

west, if he happens to turn his head that 
way. 

B. But, sir, 'tis like walking up and down a 
hill ; one man may naturally do the one better 
than the other. A hare will run up a hill best 
from her forelegs being short ; a dog down. 

J, Nay, sir ; that is from mechanical powers. 
If you make mind mechanical you may argue 
in that manner. One mind is a vice, and holds 
fast ; there's a good memory. Another is a 
file, and he is a disputant, a controversalist. 
Another is a razor, and he is sarcastical. 

Afterward there was a word or two of White- 
field and Wesley. 

J. I knew him (Whitefield) before he began to 
be better than other people, (smiling ;) I believe 
he sincerely meant well, but had a mixture 
of politics and ostentation; whereas Wesley 
thought of religion only.* 

* Alluding to this expression of Johnson, Boswell pays the 
following handsome tribute to Wesley: "I should think myself 
very unworthy if I did not acknowledge Mr. John Wesley's 
merit as a veteran soldier of Jesus Christ ; who has, I do believe, 
turned many from darkness to light, and from the power of 



236 Life of Samuel Johnson. 

R. Whitefield had strong natural eloquence, 
which, if cultivated, would have done great 
things. 

J. Why, sir, I take it he was at the height of 
what his abilities could do, and was sensible of 
it. He had the ordinary advantages of educa- 
tion ; but he chose to pursue that oratory which 
is for the mob. 

B. He had great effect on the passions. 

J. Why, sir, I don't think so. He could not 
represent a succession of pathetic images. He 
vociferated, and made an impression. There, 
again, was mind like a hammer. 

After several similar interviews and conver- 
sations with the literati of Edinburgh, attended 
with more or less breakfasting and sight-seeing, 
Boswell starts with his illustrious guest toward 
the " Islands of the West." 

Satan to God." At another time ho requests of Johnson a 
letter of introduction to Wesley, and adds, " I wish to be made 
acquainted with Mr. John Wesley ; for though I differed from 
liim in some points, I admired his various talents, and loved his 
pious zeal." 



Life of Samtiel Johnso7i.^ 237 



CHAPTER XXV. 

Mr. Boswell cannot commence his narrative 
of this excursion to the Hebrides without treat- 
ing his readers with the following precious 
specimen of his egotism : 

" I have given a sketch of Dr. Johnson ; my 
readers may wish to know a little of his fellow- 
traveler. Think, then, of a gentleman of ancient 
blood, the pride of which was his predominant 
passion. He was then in his thirty-third year, and 
had been about four years happily married. His 
inchnation was to be a soldier ; but his father, 
a respectable Judge, had pressed him into the 
profession of the law. He had traveled a good 
deal, and seen many varieties of human life. 
He had thought more than any body had sup- 
posed, and had a pretty good stock of general 
learning and knowledge. He had all Dr. John- 
son's principles, with some degree of relaxation. 
He had rather too little than too much pru- 



238 Life of Samuel Johnson. 

dence ; and, his imagination being lively, he 
often said things of which the effect was very 
different from the intention. He resembled 
sometimes 

' The best good man, with the worst natured muse.' 

" He cannot deny himself the vanity of finish- 
ing with the encomium of Dr. Johnson, whose 
friendly partiality to the companion of his tour 
represents him as * one whose acuteness would 
help my inquiry, and whose gayety of conver- 
sation, and civility of manners, are sufficient 
to counteract the inconveniences of travel 
in countries less hospitable than we have 
passed.' " 

Boswell adds of his wife : " She did not 
seem quite easy when we left her, but away 
we went." We track them as they cross the 
Frith of Forth, and as they reach St. Andrews 
late at night. Here they tarry a day or two for 
sight-seeing and social interviews with learned 
men, affording Johnson opportunities of vent- 
ing his spleen upon Knox — wishing him to have 
been buried in the highway, and dreading what 



Life of Samuel Johnson. 239 

he called his reformations, and hoping that 
a certain old dilapidated steeple which they 
passed might fall on some of his posterity. 
Resuming their journey they pass Dundee, and 
reach Montrose near midnight. The following 
day they arrived at Aberdeen, having enjoyed 
on the way a highly pleasant interview with 
Lord Monboddo at his residence, where the 
travelers were received with great hospitality. 
At Aberdeen they were introduced to the 
President and Professors of the University, be- 
tween whom and the travelers was m.uch pleas- 
ant intercourse. Proceeding, they reach Inver- 
ness by way of Banff, Cullen, and Elgin. At 
this point they dispensed with their carriage, 
and pursued their journey on horseback over 
the Highlands to Glenelg, opposite the Isle of 
Skye. On the following day they crossed the 
water six miles to this island ; and thus, after 
a leisurely journey of about a fortnight from 
Edinburgh, our two excursionists were at the 
Hebrides. 

We can follow 'these strange " yoke-fellows 
15 



240 Life of Sarmtcl yoJinson. 

but briefly amid their sojournings, wanderings, 
and conversations among these islands. John- 
son's fame had, of course, preceded him where- 
ever he traveled through Scotland and the 
Hebrides, so that he was every-where received 
and treated with distinction by the more in- 
telligent and wealthy classes of society. More- 
over, Boswell, "his guide, philosopher, and 
friend," was of the Scotch nobility, so that the 
literary renown of the one, and the social posi- 
tion of the other, insured to them a cordial 
introduction every-where. 

On the island of Skye, prominent among 
the Hebrides, they seem to have spent quite 
a number of days, receiving the hospitalities 
of one and another distinguished family. As 
they travel in the island, they notice houses 
generally made of turf and roofed with grass. 
A country well peopled, abundance of rocks, 
wearing, at times the appearance of extensive 
ruins of ancient buildings, the landscape mainly 
destitute of trees, but green with verdure. 

The excursionists are presently invited to 



Life of Sanmel yohnsofi. 241 

Rasay, lying a short distance west of Skye, 
and the invitation comes from the proprietor 
of the island. They embark in a strong open 
boat sent over for their special accommodation. 
The wind was high or contrary, and the sea 
rough, yet the four stout oarsmen drove the 
boat vigorously on, singing as they rowed, 
Dr. Johnson, meanwhile, sitting high in the 
stern "like a magnificent Triton." They reach 
the island at six o'clock, and as they near the 
landing through a beautiful bay the song of the 
boatmen is succeeded by the singing and shout- 
ing of the reapers on shore as they ply vigor- 
ously the joyous work of the harvest. A large 
company, headed by the Laird of Rasay him- 
self, issue out from the fine family mansion to 
salute the strangers. Then follows a substan- 
tial dinner, with various wines, and coffee and 
tea. Afterward come music and dancing and 
abundant joviality, and Boswell is, of course, 
in his element, and the great Johnson is so 
delighted with the scene as to say, ''I know 
not how we shall get away." 



242 Life of Samuel yohnson. 

In their explorations and inquiries they ascer- 
tain the island to be about fifteen miles long 
by four in width, comprising well-drained grass 
and corn lands, no scarcity of stones, a con- 
siderable mountain, a cave or two, some natural 
forests, and numerous small lakes abounding 
with fish. There is also an abundance of cattle, 
sheep, goats, horses, and some species of wild 
fowls, but no hares, rabbits, foxes, or deer. 
The island has no roads, and consequently 
there is no riding, for which, indeed, there 
would seem to be limited opportunities, as they 
estimate it to rain there nine months in the 
year. 

After a sojourn there of three days our 
travelers returned to Skye, and passed some 
days at the castle, Dunvegen, where they 
were splendidly entertained by the laird, Col. 
M'Leod, and had much interesting conversa- 
tion ; so that of this visit Boswell writes : "It 
was wonderful how well time passed in a re- 
mote castle, and in dreary weather." 

After some days they embarked for Mull, 



Life of Samuel Johnsofi. 243 

touching at the small island of Col on the 
way. Of this island, being near the fifty- 
seventh parallel, the climate is described as 
being very mild, so that they never house their 
animals in winter. The lakes are never frozen 
sufficiently to bear a man, and snow never lies 
above a few hours. 

At length, reaching Mull after several days' 
detention at Col, they describe the island as a 
hilly country, diversified with heath and grass 
and many rivulets. Johnson, in a fit of ill- 
humor, denounced it as " a dreary country, 
much worse than Skye. O, sir, a most dolor- 
ous country." 

Traveling on horseback, Boswell was obliged 
to ride without a bridle, and his servant with- 
out a saddle, while Johnson was longing "to 
get to a countiy of saddles and bridles!' The 
horse on which he rode being small was not 
quite adequate to support so heavy a man, so 
that in ascending the frequent rugged steeps 
he was obliged to dismount and walk. Before 
finally leaving Mull they cross to the small 



244 Life of Saumel JoJinson. 

neighboring island, Icolmkill, or lona, a spot 
fraught with historical interest. So excited 
were the travelers on reaching this little island 
that they embraced each other, and one result 
of the visit was the following splendid passage 
from Johnson's pen : " We were now treading 
that illustrious island which was once the 
luminary of the Caledonian regions, whence 
savage clans and roving barbarians derived the 
benefits of knowledge and the blessings of 
religion. To abstract the mind from all local 
emotion would be impossible if it were endeav- 
ored, and would be foolish if it were possible. 
Whatever withdraws us from the power of our 
senses — whatever makes the past, the distant, 
or the future predominate over the present — 
advances us in the dignity of thinking beings. 
Far from me, and from my friends, be such 
frigid philosophy as may conduct us indifferent 
and unmoved over any ground which has been 
dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue. That 
man is little to be envied whose patriotism 
would not gain force upon the plain of Mara- 



Life of Samticl Johnson. 245 

thoji, or whose piety would not grow warmer 
among the ruins of lona ! " 

Returning to Mull on the following day, they 
immediately crossed to the main land at Oban, 
and thus was finished their excursion among 
the Western Islands.* 

* Whoever would peruse a particular and deeply iuteresting 
account of this excursion should consult not only the Journal 
of Mr. Boswell, but especially Johnson's history of the journey 
as given in his Works. 



246 Life of Samuel yohnson. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

Our travelers, with but slight delay, proceeded 
to Edinburgh by way of Glasgow. Having 
received the congratulations and attentions of 
many persons of distinction at these two famous 
cities, Dr. Johnson, after a few days of rest and 
recreation, took coach for London, where he 
arrived in safety late in November. 

The following is Mr. Boswell's brief sum- 
mary of Dr. Johnson's movements in Scotland : 

" Elis stay in Scotland was from the i8th of 
August, on which day he arrived, till the 22d of 
November, when he set out on his return to 
London ; and, I believe, ninety-four days were 
never passed by any man in a more vigorous 
exertion. 

" He came by the way of Berwick-upon-Tweed 
to Edinburgh, where he remained a few days, 
and then went, by St. Andrews, Aberdeen, 
Inverness, and Fort Augustus, to the Hebrides, 



Life of Saimicl Johnson. 247 

to visit which was the principal object he had 
in view. He visited the Isles of Skye, Rasay, 
Col, Mull, Inchkenneth, and Icolmkill. He 
traveled through Argyleshire by Inverary, and 
from thence, by Loch Lomond and Dunbarton, 
to Glasgow ; then, by London, to Auchinleck 
in Ayrshire, the seat of my family, and then, by 
Hamilton, back to Edinburgh, where he again 
spent some time. 

" He saw the four Universities of Scotland, its 
three principal cities, and as much of the High- 
land and insular life as was sufficient for his 
philosophical contemplation. 

"He was respectfully entertained by the 
great, the learned, and the elegant wherever 
he went ; nor was he less delighted with the 
hospitality which he experienced in humbler 
life." 

Dr. Johnson, on reaching London, seems to 
have commenced at once to prepare an account 
of his tour to the Hebrides, which was published 
in the following autumn. 

A few brief extracts from his letters to Mrs. 



248 Life of Samuel Johnson. 

Thrale, during his peregrinations in Scotland, 
will occupy all the space we can spare for any 
further details of this excursion : 

At Edinburgh. — " I am now at Edinburgh, 
and have been, this day, running about ; I run 
pretty well. 

" Boswell has very handsome and spacious 
rooms ; level with the ground on one side of the 
house, and, on the other, four stories high." 

At St. Andrews. — " The Professors (of the 
University) who happened to be resident in the 
vacation made a public dinner, and treated us 
very kindly and respectfully. 

" Education, such as is here to be had, is 
sufficiently cheap. Their term, or, as they call 
it, their session, lasts seven months in the year, 
which the students of the highest rank and 
greatest expense may pass here for twenty 
pounds ; in which are included board, lodging, 
books, and the continual instruction of three 
Professors." 

At Aberdeen. — " There are two cities of the 
name of Aberdeen. The two cities have their 



Life of Samuel Johnson. ' 249 

separate magistrates, and the two colleges are, 
in effect, two universities, which confer degrees 
on each other. 

" Education is here of the same price as at 
St. Andrew's, only the session is but from the 
1st of November to the ist of April. The 
academical buildings seem rather to advance 
than decline. They showed their libraries, 
which were not very splendid ; but some manu- 
scripts were so exquisitely penned that I wished 
my dear mistress * to have seen them. 

" I was presented with the freedom of the 
city, not in a gold box, but in good Latin. 
Let me pay Scotland one just praise ! There 
was no officer gaping for a fee. This could 
have been said of no city on the English side 
of the Tweed. I wore my patent of freedom, 
pro more, in my hat from the new town to the 
old, about a mile. I then dined with my friend 
the Professor of Physic, at his house, and saw 
the King's College. Boswell was very angry 
that the Aberdeen Professors would not talk." 

*Mrs. Thrale. 



250 Life of Samuel yohnson. 

At Foris. — " A very great proportion of the 
people are barefoot ; shoes are not considered 
^s necessaries of life. It is still the custom to 
send out the sons of gentlemen without them 
into the streets and ways." 

At Glenelg. — '' We, at last, came to Glenelg, 
a place on the sea-side opposite to Skye. We 
were, by this time, weary and disgusted ; nor 
was our humor much mended by our inn ; 
which, though it was built of lime and slate — 
the Highlander s description of a house which 
he thinks magnificent — had neither wine, bread, 
eggs, nor any thing that we could eat or drink. 
When we were taken up stairs, a dirty fellow 
bounced out of the bed where one of us was to 
lie. Boswell blustered, but nothing could be 
got. At last a gentleman in the neighborhood, 
who heard of our arrival, sent us rum and white 
sugar. Boswell was now provided for in part ; 
and the landlord prepared some mutton chops, 
which we could not eat, and killed two hens, of 
which Boswell made his servant broil a limb, with 
what effect I know not. We had a lemon and a 



Life of Samuel yohnson. 251 

piece of bread, which suppUed me with my sup- 
per. When the repast was ended we began to 
deUberate upon bed. Mrs. Boswell had warned 
us that we should catch something, and had given 

us sheets for our seacrity ; ' for and ,' she 

said, 'came back from Skye scratching them- 
selves.' I thought sheets a slender defense 
against the confederacy with which we were 
threatened, and by this time our Highlanders 
had found a place where they could get some 
hay. I ordered hay to be laid thick upon the 
bed, and slept upon it in my great coat. Bos- 
well laid sheets upon his bed, and reposed in 
linen like a gentleman." 

At the Isle of Skye. — "I am now looking 
on the sea from a house of Sir Alexander 
Macdonald, in the Isle of Skye. Little did 
I once think of seeing this region of obscurity, 
and httle did you once expect a salutation 
from this verge of European life. I have 
now the pleasure of going where nobody 
goes, and seeing what nobody sees. Our 
dcsicn is to visit several of the smaller 



252 Life of Samuel Johnson, 

islands, and then pass over to the southwest of 
Scotland." 

*' Skye is almost equally divided between the 
two great families of Macdonald and Macleod, 
other proprietors having only small districts. 
The two great lords do not know, within twenty 
square miles, the contents of their own ter- 
ritories." 

"Macleod has offered me an island. If it 
were not too far off I should hardly refuse it. 
My island would be pleasanter than Bright- 
helmstone, if you and my master could come 
to it ; but I cannot think it pleasant to live 
quite alone." 

" You will now expect that I should give 
you some account of the Isle of Skye, of which, 
though I have been twelve days upon it, I have 
little to say. It is an island, perhaps fifty miles 
long, so much indented by inlets of the sea 
that there is no part of it removed from the 
water more than six miles. No part that I 
have seen is plain ; you are always climbing 
or descending, and every step is upon rock 



Life of Samttel Johnson. 253 

or mire. A walk upon plowed ground in 
England is a dance upon carpets compared to 
the toilsome drudgery of wandering in Skye. 
There is neither town nor village in the island, 
nor have I seen any house but Macleod's that 
is not much below your habitation at Bright- 
helmstone. In the mountains there are stags 
and roebucks, but no hares, and few rabbits ; 
nor have I seen any thing that interested me 
as a zoologist, except an otter, bigger than 
I thought an otter could have been." 

At Rasay. — "There is no riding at Rasay, 
the whole island being rock or mountain, from 
which the cattle often fall and are destroyed. 
It is very barren, and maintains, as near as I 
could collect, about seven hundred inhabitants, 
perhaps ten to a square mile. In these coun- 
tries you are not to suppose that you shall 
find villages or inclosures. The traveler wan- 
ders through a naked desert, gratified some- 
times, but rarely, with the sight of cows, and 
now and then finds a heap of loose stones and 
turf in a cavity between rocks, where a being 



254 Life of Samuel yohnson. 

born with all those powers which education 
expands, and all those sensations which culture 
refines, is condemned to shelter itself from the 
wind and rain." 

At Col. — " Col is but a barren place. De- 
scription has here few opportunities of spread- 
ing her colors. The difference of day and 
night is the only vicissitude. The succession 
of sunshine to rain, or of calms to tempests, we 
have not known ; wind and rain have been our 
only weather." 

At Glasgow. — " October 29 was spent in 
surveying the city and college. I was not 
much pleased with any of the Professors. The 
town is opulent and handsome." 

At Edinburgh. — "We came hither on the 
ninth of this month. I long to come under 
your care, but for some days cannot decently 
get away. They congratulate our return as if 
we had been with Phipps or Banks. I am 
ashamed of their salutations." 



Life of Samuel Johnson. 255 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

Thus Dr. Johnson, who, up to old age, seems 
to have been very stationary, and possessing 
but a sUght disposition to wander abroad, be- 
comes something of a traveler. In the summer 
following the autumn of his visit to the Heb- 
rides he accompanies the Thrales on a jour- 
ney to Wales. This excursion occupied the 
travelers nearly three months, and though he 
kept a brief journal of their several stages of 
progress, he yet notes but little that is of interest 
to us who follow him at the distance of a hun- 
dred years. " I have been," he writes to Bos- 
well, "in five of the six counties of North 
Wales, and have seen St. Asaph and Bangor, 
the two seats of their bishops ; have been upon 
Penmaen-mawr and Snowdon, and passed over 
into Anglesea. But Wales is so little different 
from England that it offers nothing to the 

speculation of the traveler." • 
16 



2$6 Life of Samuel JoJlusoii. 

Returning to London, he completed and put 
to press his " Journey to the Western Islands." 
He also published a brief political pamphlet 
entitled *' The Patriot." In this composition, 
while enumerating various marks of a true 
patriot, he must needs betray that rank Tory- 
ism for which he was always so much distin- 
guished. " He that wishes to see his country 
robbed of its rights cannot be a patriot. That 
man, therefore, is no patriot who justifies the 
ridiculous claims of American usurpation ; who 
endeavors to deprive the nation of its natural 
and lawful authority over its own colonies, 
those colonies which were settled under Endish 
protection, were constituted by an Enghsh char- 
ter, and have been defended by English arms. . . . 
He that accepts protection stipulates obedience. 
We have always protected the Americans ; we 
may, therefore, subject them to government." 

Such is the sophistry into which even a 
great mind may fall, and thus easily may preju- 
dice darken a judgment otherwise clear and 
luminous as tke fair sunshine. 



Life of Samuel yo/uison. 257 

Shortly afterward there appeared another 
poKtical effusion from his pen, inspired by the 
same Americans, and the same great pohtical 
crisis. This pamphlet was entitled " Taxation 
no Tyranny ;" and was designed to be an 
answer to the " Resolutions and Addresses of 
the American Congress." 

This title sufficiently indicates the occasion 
of this unfortunate production. Johnson's Tory 
sentiments toward America had ever been of 
an extreme character, and such as were as dis- 
graceful to himself, as they were unjust and 
injurious to the colonists. Years before pen- 
ning this pamphlet he denounced them as 
criminals. " Sir, they are a race of convicts, 
and ought to be thankful for any thing we al- 
low them short of hanging." 

Such was the bearing of this great and mis- 
taken man toward our Revolutionary fathers, 
and which qualified him to be a fit advocate of 
colonial oppression, and to goad on the British 
government to those extreme and unjust meas- 
ures which resulted to England in the loss of 



258 Life of Samuel Johnson, 

an empire, and to us in the establishment of an 
independent and mighty nation. 

It is pleasant to notice that Mr. Boswell, with 
all his singular and intense deference for John- 
son, here dissents in toto from his great master. 
Referring to the pamphlet " Taxation no Tyran- 
ny," he writes : " Of this performance I avoided 
to talk with him ; for I had now formed a clear 
and settled opinion that the people of America 
were well warranted to resist a claim that their 
fellow-subjects in the mother country should 
have the entire command of their fortunes by 
taxing them without their own consent ; and 
the extreme violence which it breathed ap- 
peared to me so unsuitable to the mildness of a 
Christian philosopher, and so directly opposite 
to the principles of peace which he had so 
beautifully recommended in his pamphlet re- 
specting Falkland's Islands, that I was sorry 
to see him appear in so unfavorable a light. 
Besides, I could not perceive in it that abil- 
ity of argument, or that felicity of expression, 
for which he was, upon other occasions, so 



Life of Samuel Johitson. 259 

eminent. Positive assertion, sarcastical sever- 
ity, and extravagant ridicule, which he himself 
reprobated as a test of truth, were united in 
this rhapsody. 

"That this pamphlet was written at the de- 
sire of those who were then in power I have 
no doubt ; and, indeed, he owned to me that it 
had been revised and curtailed by some of them. 
He told me that they had struck out one pas- 
sage, which was to this effect : * That the colo- 
nist could with no solidity argue from their not 
having been taxed while in their infancy that 
they should not now be taxed. We do not put 
a calf into the plow ; we wait till he is an ox.' 
He said ' They struck it out either critically, as 
too ludicrous, or politically, as too exasperating. 
I care not which. It was their business. If 
an architect says I will build five stories, and 
the man who employs him says, I will have 
only three, the employer is to decide.' 'Yes, 
sir,' said I, 'in ordinary cases. But should it 
be so when the architect gives his skill and 
labor gratis .<* ' " 



26o Life of Samuel Johnson. 

It is pleasant also to notice that Dr. John- 
son's political effusions drew upon him numerous 
attacks from minds who thought more soberly 
and justly upon the great American question. 
Dr. Towers thus addresses him : " I would, 
however, wish you to remember, should you 
again address the public under the character 
of a political writer, that luxuriance of imagina- 
tion or energy of language will ill compensate 
for the want of candor, of justice, and of truth. 
And I shall only add, that should I hereafter 
be disposed to read, as I heretofore have done, 
the most excellent of all your performances, 
* The Rambler,' the pleasure which I have been 
accustomed to find in it will be much dimin- 
ished by the reflection that the writer of so 
moral, so elegant, and so valuable a work was 
capable of prostituting his talents in such pro- 
ductions as '■ The False Alarm,' the ' Thoughts 
on the Transactions respecting Falkland's Isl- 
ands,' and * The Patriot.' " The famous " Taxa- 
tion no Tyranny" was not yet issued, and 
was, therefore, not included in this precious 



Life of Samuel yohnson. 261 

list. Another eminent person thus inquires of 
Bos well : 

" How can your great, I will not say your 
'f)ious, but your moral friend, support the bar- 
barous measures of administration, which they 
have not the face to ask even their infidel pen- 
sioner, Hume, to defend?" 

While numerous animadversions so faithful 
and just were hurled at Johnson for his Tory 
publications, it is strange as well as painful to 
detect the great and good Wesley among his 
sympathizers. As the points at which these 
two great lives touch are extremely few, we 
venture to insert entire the following letter of 
Johnson to Wesley : 

''February 6, IT'^G. 

" Sir : When I received your ' Commentary 
on the Bible,' I durst not, at first, flatter myself 
that I was to keep it, having so little claim to 
so valuable a present ; and when Mrs. Hall * 
informed me of your kindness, was hindered, 

* A sister of Weslev. 



262 Life of Samuel Johnson. 

from time to time, from returning you those 
thanks which I now entreat you to accept. 

"I have thanks, Hkewise, to return you for 
the addition of your important suffrage to my 
argument on the American question. To have 
gained such a mind as yours may justly confirm 
me in my own opinion. What effect my paper 
has upon the public I know not ; but I have 
no reason to be discouraged. The lecturer was 
surely in the right, who, though he saw his 
audience slinking away, refused to quit the 
chair while Plato stayed. 

" I am, reverend sir, 

" Your most humble ser-vant, 

" Sam. Johnson." 

The compliment to Wesley in the conclusion 
of the above letter is as flattering arid elegant 
as it is pitiful and sad that such a compliment 
might not have been elicited by a more meri- 
torious and worthy occasion. And then what 
are such compliments worth, coming even from 
the golden pen of the great Johnson, when, 



Life of Samuel yohnson. 263 

only a few months after the date of the above 
letter, he descends to utter the contemptuous 
saying following touching this same modern 
Plato? 

" In the fourth class (of egotists) we have the 
journalist, temporal and spiritual ; Elias Ash- 
mole, William Lilly, George Whitefield, John 
Wesley, and a thousand other old women and 
fanatic writers of memoirs and meditations." 



264 Life of Saiimcl yohnson. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

Dr. Johnson is again on his travels. Two 
years before this he was stumbhng hither and 
thither among the Hebrides. One year ago 
he was rambling up and down Wales ; and < 
now, September 15 th, he is off for the conti- 
nent and the mighty city of Paris. In this 
tour, also, he accompanies the Thrales. They 
are over the channel in six hours, pass on to 
Paris by one way, intending to return by 
another, with a view of seeing all possible. At 
Paris, Fontainebleau, Versailles, etc., there is, of 
course much to be seen, and they call upon the 
King and Queen, and Mr. Thrale keeps two 
coaches and a very fine table : " But, upon the 
whole, I cannot make much acquaintance here ; 
and though the churches, palaces, and some 
private houses, are very magnificent, there is 
no very great pleasure after having seen many 
in seeing more ; at least the pleasure, what- 



Life of Samuel Johnson. 265 

ever it be, must some time have an end, and 
we are beginning to think when we shall come 
home." 

Natural scenery seems never to have had 
many attractions for Johnson ; and when, on 
this tour, Mr. Thrale was once pointing out to 
him a beautiful landscape, " Never heed such 
nonsense," said he ; "a blade of grass is always 
a blade of grass whether in one country or 
another. Let us, if we do talk, talk about some- 
thing ; men and women are my subjects of 
inquiry ; let us see how these differ from those 
we have left behind." 

Johnson disliked the French as truly as the 
Scotch ; "but he applauded the number of their 
books and the graces of their style." " They 
have few sentiments," said he, "but they ex- 
press them neatly ; they have little meat, but 
they dress it well." 

He thus talks to Boswell of the French : 
"The great in France live very magnificently, 
but the rest very miserably. There is no happy 
middle state, as in England. 



266 Life of Sarmtel yoJinson. 

" The shops of Paris are mean ; the meat 
in the market is such as would be sent to a 
jail in England ; and Mr. Thrale justly ob- 
served that the cookery of the French was 
forced upon them by necessity, for they could 
not eat their meat unless they added some taste 
to it. The French are an indelicate people ; 
they will spit upon any place. At Madame-Du 
Bocaze's, a literary lady of rank, the footman 
took the sugar in his fingers and threw it into 
my coffee. I was going to put it aside ; but 
hearing it was made on purpose for me, I e'en 
tasted Tom's fingers. The same lady would 
needs make tea a rAnglaise. The spout of the 
tea-pot did not pour freely ; she bade the foot- 
man blow into it. France is worse than Scot- 
land in every thing but climate Nature has 
done more for the French, but they have done 
less for themselves than the Scotch have done." 

On another occasion, and in another com- 
pany, he remarked: "The French, sir, are a 
very silly people. They have no common life ; 
nothing but the two ends, beggary and nobility. 



Life of Saimicl Johnson. 267 

Sir, they are made up, in every thing, of two ex- 
tremes. They have no common sense, they have 
no common manners, no common learning ; 
it is gross ignorance, or les belles lettres. . . . 
They are much behindhand, stupid, ignorant 
creatures. At Fontainebleau I saw a horse- 
race. Every thing was wrong ; the heaviest 
weight was put upon the weakest horse, and 
all the jockeys wore the same color coat." 

Being asked if he had any acquaintance in 
Paris, " No," he replied, " I did not stay long 
enough to make any. I spoke only Latin, and 
I could not have much conversation. There is 
no good in letting the French have a supe- 
riority over you every word you speak." 

Johnson understood the French language 
perfectly, but could not speak it readily by 
reason of its peculiar pronunciation. Hence 
he conversed, while in France, in the Latin 
language, which he spoke with a fluency and 
elegance that were wonderful. 

Johnson and his friends reached England 
November 1 2th, after an absence of two months 



268 Life of Sanmel JoJinson. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

Dr. Johnson is now approaching his seventieth 
year, while, as yet, he evinces no decay of his 
great powers. Indeed, it was one of his firmly 
estabhshed sentiments that it was unnecessary 
for the intellect to decline in old age. " It is a 
man's own fault," said he ; *' it is from want of 
use if his mind grows torpid in old age ;" and 
being asked if an old man does not lose faster 
than he gets, " I think not," he replied, " if 
he exerts himself" 

Is there not much truth here } and do not 
a multitude of instances in illustration at 
once occur to us .-* And does it not furnish 
to such as are growing old a lesson as 
pleasant and encouraging as it is solemn and 
important } 

It was not an uncommon circumstance that 
Dr. Johnson, amid his various interviews and 
conversations with literary characters, should 



Life of Samuel JoJuison. 269 

here and there chance to enter the hsts with 
female minds, and not always to his advantage. 
He makes the acquaintance of Miss Knowles, 
an intelligent Quakeress, and the subject of con- 
versation is Soame Jenyns's " View of the In- 
ternal Evidence of the Christian Religion." The 
lady expresses her dissent from the sentiment 
of Jenyns, that friendship is not a Christian 
virtue. 

Johnson. Why, madam, strictly speaking, he 
is right. All friendship is preferring the inter- 
est of a friend, to the neglect, or perhaps 
against the interest, of others ; so that an old 
Greek said, ' He that \i2J& friends has no friend! 
Now Christianity recommends universal benev- 
olence ; to consider all men as our brethren ; 
which is contrary to the virtue of friendship, 
as described by the ancient philosophers. 
Surely, madam, your sect must approve of 
this, for you call all men friends. 

Miss Knowles. We are commanded to do^ 
good to all men, but especially to those who 
are of the household of faith. 



270 Life of Samuel yoJinson. 

J. Well, madam, the household of faith is 
wide enough. 

Miss K. But, Doctor, our Saviour had 
twelve Apostles, yet there was one he loved. 
John was called the disciple whom Jesus 
loved. 

J. Very well indeed, madam. You have 
said very well. 

Bosivell. A fine application. Pray, sir, had 
you ever thought of it .-* 

J. I had not, sir. 

Then suddenly and violently he added : " I 
am willing to love all mankind, except an 
American!' Then his rage was enkindled, and 
he breathed out threatenings and slaughter, 
denouncing them as rascals, robbers, and 
pirates, and exclaiming that he would "burn 
and destroy them." 

" Sir," said another lady, "this is an instance 
that we are always most violent against those 
whom we have injured." 

All this, it should be understood, was in 
1778, when these same "rascals," with George 



Life of Samuel yohnson. 271 

Washington at their head, were performing 
some provoking things in these parts. 

Miss Knowles appears again upon the scene, 
and again, we must think, the advantage is 
with the fair Quakeress. Mr. Boswell expresses 
horror at the thought of death. 

Miss K. Nay, thou shouldst not have a hor- 
ror for what is the gate of Hfe. 

J. No rational man can die without uneasy 
apprehension. 

Miss K. The righteous shall have hope in 
his death. 

J. Yes, madam ; that is, he shall not have 
despair. But, consider, his hope of salvation 
must be founded on the terms on which it is 
promised that the mediation of our Saviour 
shall be applied to us, namely, obedience ; and 
where obedience has failed, then, as suppletory 
to it, repentance. But what man can say that 
his obedience has been such as he would ap- 
prove of in another, or even in himself, upon 
close examination, or that his repentance has 

not been such as to require being repented of? 
17 



272 Life of Samuel Johnson. 

No man can be sure that his obedience and 
repentance will obtain salvation. 

Miss K. But divine intimation of acceptance 
may be made to the soul. 

J. Madam, it may ; but I should not think 
the better of a man who should tell me, on his 
death-bed, he was sure of salvation. A man 
cannot be sure himself that he has divine in- 
timation of acceptance, much less can he make 
others sure that he has it. 

B. Then, sir, we must be contented to ac- 
knowledge that death is a terrible thing } 

J. Yes, sir. I have made no approaches to 
a state which can look on it as not terrible. 

Miss K. (With peaceful serenity.) Does not 
St. Paul say, I have fought the good fight of faith, 
I have finished my course ; henceforth is laid 
up for me a crown of life. 

J. Yes, madam ; but here was a man in- 
spired, a man who had been converted by super- 
natural interposition. 

Had not the conversation been interrupted 
here Miss Knowles would have doubtless re- 



Life of Sanmel yohnson. 273 

ferred the wise Doctor to the great and goodly 
company of confessors and martyrs, and other 
saints who, with as full and rational assurance 
as that of Paul, have passed in triumph to pos- 
sess the immortal crown. 

A weak faith and a mighty bigotry are very 
naturally allied, as evidenced in another con- 
versation between the same parties. An amia- 
ble young lady, who had been a favorite of 
Johnson, and who had retained a great respect 
for him, felt it to be her duty to leave the 
Church of England, and attach herself to the 
more simple worship of the Friends. Miss 
Knowles, in the gentlest and most persuasive 
manner, attempts to reconcile the matter to 
the mind of Johnson. 

J. (Very angrily.) Madam, she is an odious 
wench. She could not have any proper con- 
viction that it was her duty to change her 
religion, which is the most important of all 
subjects, and should be studied with all care 
and with all the helps we can get. She knew 
no more of the Church which she left, and 



2/4 ^^f^ ^f Samuel Johnson. 

that which she embraced, than she did of the 
difference between the Copernican and Ptole- 
maic systems. 

Miss K. She had the New Testament before 
her. 

J. Madam, she could not understand the 
New Testament, the most difficult book in the 
world, for which the study of a life is required. 

Miss K. It is clear as to essentials. 

J. But not as to controversial points. The 
heathen were easily converted, because they 
had nothing to give up ; but we ought not, 
without very strong conviction indeed, to de- 
sert the religion in which we have been edu- 
cated. That is the religion given you, the 
religion in which it may be said Providence 
has placed you. If you live conscientiously in 
that religion you may be safe. But error is 
dangerous indeed, if you err when you choose 
a religion for yourself. 

Miss K. Must we then go by implicit faith } 

J. Why, madam, the greatest part of our 
knowledge is implicit faith ; and as to religion, 



Life of Samuel yohnson. 275 

have we heard all that a disciple of Confucius, 
all that a Mohammedan, can say for himself?" 

Alas for poor human nature ! How much 
holier, more Christian like and sublime would 
it have been had the venerable Doctor, in place 
of all his shallowness and misplaced wrath, 
lifted up his hands heavenward, saying, " Grace 
be with all them that love our Lord Jesus 
Christ in sincerity ! Amen." 



276 . Life of Savmcl Johnson. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

A PLEASANTER incident succeeds. 

Forty-nine years had, at this time, elapsed 
since Johnson took leave of Oxford University. 
Returning from church on Sabbath, there ac- 
costed him an elderly man who proved to be one 
of his fellow-students in college, and whom he 
had not seen in all these years. The stranger 
inquired of Johnson whether he remembered 
one Edwards. ^' I did not, at first, recollect the 
man," says Johnson, "but gradually, as we 
walked along, recovered it." 

Mr. Edwards is described as '^ a delicate-look- 
ing elderly man in gray clothes and a wig of 
many curls." It seems that he had practiced 
long as a solicitor in Chancery, but was now 
managing a small farm in the country, and 
came to town twice a week. Johnson, Mr. 
Boswell, and Mr. Edwards sit down in the 
Doctor's library and talk together. Who would 



Life of Samuel Johnson. 277 

not be interested to listen to a conversation 
occurring under such circumstances ? 

Johnson. From your having practiced the 
law long, sir, I presume you must be rich." 

Edwards. No, sir ; I got a good deal of 
money, but I had a number of poor relations to 
whom I gave a great part of it. 

J. You have been rich in the most valuable 
sense of the word. 

E. But I shall not die rich. 

J. Nay more, sir, it is better to live rich than 
to die rich. 

E. I wish I had continued at college. 

J. Why do you wish that, sir. 

E. Because I think I should have had a much 
easier life than mine has been. I should have 
been a parson, and had a good living, like Blox- 
am and several others, and lived comfortably. 

J. Sir, the life of a parson — of a conscientious 
clergyman — is not easy. I have always con- 
sidered a clergyman as the father of a larger 
family than he is able to maintain. I would 
rather have Chancery suits upon my hands than 



2/8 Life of Savmcl JoJinson. 

the cure of souls. No, sir, I do not envy a 
clergyman's life as an easy life, nor do I envy 
the clergyman who makes it an easy life. (Here 
taking himself up all of a sudden, he exclaimed,) 
O, Mr. Edwards ! I'll convince you that I recol- 
lect you. Do you remember our drinking to- 
gether at an ale-house near Pembroke-gate .? 
At that time you told me of the Eton boy, 
who, when verses on our Saviour's turning 
water into wine were prescribed as an exercise, 
brought up a single line, which was highly 
admired : ^j/^aaM^^^^^ 

"Vidit et emlmit lympha pudica Deum;" 

and I told you of another fine line in Camden's 
Remains ; a eulogy upon one of our kings, who 
was succeeded by his son, a prince of equal 
merit : 

" Mira cano ; Sol occubiiit, nox nulla secuta est." 

E, You are a philosopher. Doctor. 

J. I have tried, too, in my time, to be a phi- 
losopher ; but, I don't know how, cheerfulness 
was always breaking in. Mr. Burke, Sir Joshua 
Reynolds, Mr. Courtenay, Mr. Malone, and, in- 



Life of Samuel yohnson. 279 

deed, all the eminent men to whom I have 
mentioned this, have thought it an exquisite 
trait of character. The truth is, that philos- 
ophy, like religion, is too generally supposed to 
be hard and severe ; at least so grave as to ex- 
clude all gayety. 

E. I have been twice married. Doctor. You, 
I suppose, have never known what it was to 
have a wife. 

J. Sir, I have known what it was to have a 
wife, and (in a solemn, tender, faltering tone) I 
have known what it was to lose a wife. It had 
almost broke my heart. 

E. How do you live, sir.? For my part, I 
must have my regular meals, and a glass of 
good wine. I find I require it. 

J. I now drink no wine, sir. Early in life I 
drank wine ; for many years I drank none. I 
then, for some years, drank a great deal. 

E. Some hogsheads, I warrant you. 

J. I then had a severe illness, and left it off; 
and I have never begun it again. I never felt 
any difference upon myself from eating one 



280 Life of Samuel yohnson. 

thing rather than another, nor from one kind 
of weather rather than another. There are 
people, I beheve, who feel a difference ; but I 
am not one of them. And as to regular meals, 
I have fasted from the Sunday's dinner to the 
Tuesday's dinner without any inconvenience. 
I believe it is best to eat just as one is hungry ; 
but a man who is in business, or a man who 
has a family, must have stated meals. I am a 
straggler. I may leave this town and go to 
Grand Cairo without being missed here, or ob- 
served there. 

E. Don't you eat supper, sir } 

J. No, sir. 

E, For my part, now, I consider supper as a 
turnpike through which we must pass in order 
to get to bed. 

./. You are a lawyer, Mr. Edwards. Lawyers 
know life practically. A bookish man should 
always have them to converse with. They 
have what he wants. 

E. I am grown old ; I am sixty-five. 

J. I shall be sixty-eight next birth-day. 



Life of Samuel JoJinson. 281 

Come, sir, drink water, and put in for a 
hundred. 

Mr. Edwards mentioned a gentleman who 
had left his whole fortune to Pembroke College. 

J. Whether to leave one's whole fortune to a 
college be right must depend upon circum- 
stances. I would leave the interest of the for- 
tune I bequeathed to a college to my relations 
or my friends, for their lives. It is the same 
thing to a college, which is a permanent society, 
whether it gets the money now or twenty years 
hence ; and I would wish to mal^e my relations 
or friends feel the benefit of it. 

We must of course receive all this as true, 
but it is all very strange as well. We do not 
marvel so much that Johnson had not recog- 
nized Edwards in all this long time. But what 
about the latter .? Had not the fame of Johnson 
been familiar to him for years t Did he not 
know, first as well as last, that the famous Dr. 
Johnson was the Johnson of his school days } 
Did* he not know that London was his home.'* 
Had he never met him and recognized him 



282 Life of Samuel Johnson. 

until this Sabbath day ? And if he recognized 
him now, why did he not years before ? And 
if he might have selected him long years ago, 
and declined to do so, why hail him now, after 
the long lapse of half a century ? 

But inquiries are useless. It is one of the 
mysteries, unless the following notice may par- 
tially explain. Three years after the interview 
of Johnson and Edwards, as above related, they 
encountered each other again and at St. Clem- 
ent's Church. Boswell addressing him said, 
"I think, sir. Dr. Johnson and you meet only 
at Church." " Sir," said he, " it is the best 
place we can meet in, except heaven, and I 
hope we shall meet there too." 

Dr. Johnson afterward told Boswell that 
there was very little communication between 
Edwards and him after their unexpected re- 
newal of acquaintance. " But," said he, smil- 
ing, "he met me once and said, ^I am told 
you have written a very pretty book called the 
Rambler.' I was unwilling that he should leave 
the world in total darkness, and sent him a set." 



Life of Sanmel yohnson. 283 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

In this year, (1781,) and at seventy-two years 
of age, Dr. Johnson gave to the world his 
" Lives of the EngUsh Poets." About four 
years before "a meeting was held, consisting 
of about forty of the most respectable book- 
sellers of London, when it was agreed that an 
elegant and uniform edition of the English 
poets should be immediately printed, with a 
concise account of the life of each author by 
Dr. Samuel Johnson, and that three persons 
should be deputed to wait upon Dr. Johnson 
to solicit him to undertake the Lives, namely, 
T. Davies, Strahan, and Cadell. The Doctor 
very politely undertook it, and seemed exceed- 
ingly pleased with the proposal." 

He speaks of writing this work in his " usual 
way, dilatorily and hastily, unwilling to work 
and 'working with vigor and haste ; written, 
I hope, in such a manner as may tend to the 



284 Life of Samuel Johnson. 

promotion of piety." Mrs. Thrale adds : ''This 
facility of writing, and this dilatoriness to write, 
Dr. Johnson always retained from the days that 
he lay a-bed and dictated his first publication 
to Mr. Hector, who acted as his amanuensis, to 
the moment he made me copy out those varia^ 
tions in Pope's Homer which are printed in 
the Lives of the Poets!' 

Of this production Mr. Boswell writes : " This 
is a work which, of all Dr. Johnson's writings, 
will, perhaps, be read most generally, and with 
most pleasure. Philology and biography were 
his favorite pursuits, and those who lived most 
in intimacy with him heard him upon all occa- 
sions when there was a proper opportunity take 
delight in expatiating upon the various merits 
of the English poets, upon the niceties of their 
characters, and the events of their progress 
through the world which they contributed to 
illuminate. His mind was so full of that kind 
of information, and it was so well arranged in 
his memory, that in performing what he had 
undertaken in this way he had little more to 



Life of Samuel yohnson. 285 

do than to put his thoughts upon paper, ex- 
hibiting, first, each poet's Hfe, and then subjoin- 
ing a critical examination of his genius and 
works. But when he began to write, the sub- 
ject swelled in such a manner that instead of 
prefaces to each poet of no more than a few 
pages, as he originally intended, he produced 
an ample, rich, and most entertaining viev>' of 
them in every respect. . . . The booksellers, 
justly sensible of the great additional value of 
the copyright, presented him with another 
hundred pounds, over and above the tw^o hun- 
dred for which his agreement was to furnish 
such prefaces as he thought fit. 

" This was, however," adds Mr. Bos well, 
*' but a small recompense for such a collection 
of biography, and such principles and illustra- 
tions of criticism as, if digested and arranged 
in one system by some modern Aristotle or 
Longinus, might form a code upon that subject 
such as no other nation can show." 



286 Life of Samuel yolinson. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

It was in this same year (1781) that Dr. 
Johnson was called to bury his old and stead- 
fast friend, Mr. Thrale. 

"With him," he writes, "were buried many 
of my hopes and pleasures. ... I felt almost 
the last flutter of his pulse, and looked for the 
last time upon the face that, for fifteen years, 
had never been turned on me but with respect 
or benignity. . . . The decease of him from 
whose friendship I had obtained many oppor- 
tunities for amusement, and to whom I turned 
my thoughts as to a refuge from misfortunes, 
has left me heavy. I enjoyed his favor for 
almost a fourth part of my life." 

" Mr. Thrale's death," writes Boswell, " was 
a very essential loss to Johnson, who, although 
he did not foresee all that afterward happened, 
was sufficiently convinced that the comforts 
which Mr. Thrale's family afforded him would 



Life of Samuel Johiison. 287 

now, in a great measure, cease. He, however, 
continued to show a kind attention to his 
widow and children as long as it was accept- 
able, and he took upon him, with a very earnest 
concern, the office of one of his executors, the 
importance of which seemed greater than usual 
to him from his circumstances having been 
always such that he had scarcely any share 
in the real business of life. His friends of the 
Club were in hopes that Mr. Thrale might 
have made a liberal provision for him, which, 
as Mr. Thrale left no son and a very large 
fortune, it would have been highly to his honor 
to have done, and, considering Johnson's age, 
could not have been of long duration ; but he 
bequeathed him only two hundred pounds, 
which was the legacy given to each of his 
executors. 

On the day after Mr. Thrale's death Johnson 
addresses the following note to the widow : 

" Dearest Madam : Of your injunctions to 

pray for you and write to you I hope to leave 
18 



288 Life of Sanmel yohnson. 

neither unobserved ; and I hope to find you 
willing, in a short time, to alleviate your trouble 
by some other exercise of the mind. I am not 
without my part of the calamity. No death 
since that of my wife has ever oppressed me 
like this. But let us remember that we are in 
the hands of Him who knows when to give 
and when to take away ; who will look upon us 
with mercy through all our variations of exist- 
ence, and who invites us to call on him in the day 
of trouble. Call upon him in this great revo- 
lution of life, and call with confidence. You 
will then find comfort for the past, and support 
for the future. He that has given you happi- 
ness in marriage, to a degree of which, without 
personal knowledge, I should have thought the 
description fabulous, can give you another mode 
of happiness as a mother, and, at last, the 
happiness of losing all temporal cares in the 
thoughts of an eternity in heaven. 

" I do not exhort you to reason yourself into 
tranquillity. We must first pray, and then 
labor ; first implore the blessing of God, and 



Life of Samuel yohnson. 289 

then use those means which he puts into our 
hands. Cultivated ground has few weeds ; a 
mind occupied by lawful business has little 
room for useless regret. 

" We read the will to-day ; but I will not fill 
my first letter with any other account than 
that, with all my zeal for your advantage, I am 
satisfied ; and that the other executors, more 
used to consider property than I, commended it 
for wisdom and equity. Yet why should I not 
tell you that you have fi.ve hundred pounds for 
your immediate expenses, and two thousand 
pounds a year, with both the houses and all 
the goods." 

A few days afterward he writes again : 

" Dearcst Madam : That you are gradually 
recovering your tranquillity is the effect to be 
humbly expected from trust in God. Do not 
represent life as darker than it is. Your loss 
has been very great, but you retain more than 
almost any other can hope to possess. You 
are high in the opinion of mankind ; you have 



290 Life of Samuel yohnson. 

children from whom much pleasure may be ex- 
pected ; and that you will find many firiends you 
have no reason to doubt. Of my friendship, 
be it more or less, I hope you think yourself 
certain, without much art or care. It will not 
be easy for me to repay the benefits that I have 
received ; but I hope to be always ready at your 
call. Our sorrow has different effects ; you are 
withdrawn into solitude, and I am driven into 
company. I am afraid of thinking what I have 
lost. I never had such a friend before. Let 
me have your prayers." 

On the following day he again addresses her : 

" You will not suppose that much has hap- 
pened since last night, nor, indeed, is this a 
time for talking much of loss and gain. The 
business of Christians is now, for a few days, 
in their own bosoms. God grant us to do it 
properly ! I hope you gam ground on your af- 
fliction ; I hope to overcome mine. You and 
Miss* must comfort one another. May you 

* A daushtor. 



Life of Samttel JoJinson. 291 

long live happily together ! I have nobody 
whom I expect to share my uneasiness ; nor, 
if I could communicate it, would it be less. 
I give it a little vent, and amuse it as I can. 
Let us pray for one another ; and when we 
meet, we may try what fidelity and tenderness 
will do for us. 

" There is no wisdom in useless and hopeless 
sorrow ; but there is something in it so like 
virtue, that he who is wholly without, it cannot 
be loved, nor will, by me at least, be thought 
worthy of esteem." 

We conclude this chapter with the following 
somber entry, by Boswell, at about this time : 
"It was observed by myself, and other of John- 
son's friends, that, soon after the decease of 
Mr. Thrale, his visits to Streatham became less 
and less frequent, and that he studiously avoided 
the mention of the place or family. It seems that 
between him and the widow there was a formal 
taking of leave," when he warmly commended 
them to the care of their heavenly Father. 



292 Life of Sanniel yoJinson. 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

The following extract from a letter to Mrs. 
Thrale will explain itself: 

"On Monday, the i6th, I sat for my picture, 
and walked a considerable way with little incon- 
venience. In the afternoon and evening I felt 
myself light and easy, and began to plan 
schemes of life. Thus I went to bed, and in a 
short time waked and sat up, as has long been 
my custom, when I felt a confusion and indis- 
tinctness in my head, which lasted, I suppose, 
about half a minute. I was alarmed, and prayed 
God that however he might afflict my body, he 
would spare my understanding. This prayer, 
that I might try the integrity of my faculties, I 
made in Latin verse. The lines were not very 
good, but I knew them not to be very good ; I 
made them easily, and concluded myself to be 
unimpaired in my faculties. 

" Soon after I perceived that I had suffered a 



Life of Samuel Johnson. 293 

paralytic stroke, and that my speech was taken 
from me. I had no pain, and so Httle dejection 
in this dreadful state that I wondered at my 
own apathy, and considered that, perhaps, death 
itself, when it should come, would excite less 
horror than seems now to attend it." 

A fortnight after he wrote as follows to 
Boswell : 

*' On the 17th of last month, about three 
in the morning, as near as I can guess, I per- 
ceived myself almost totally deprived of speech. 
I had no pain. My organs were so obstructed 
that I could say No, but could scarcely say Yes. 
I wrote the necessary directions, for it pleased 
God to spare my hand, and sent for Dr. Heber- 
den and Dr. Brocklesby. Between the time 
in which I discovered my own disorder and 
that in which I sent for the doctors I had, 
I believe, in spite of my surprise and solicitude, 
a little sleep, and nature began to renew its 
operations. They came, and gave the direc- 
tions which the disease required, and from that 
time I have been continually improving in 



294 Life of Samuel JoJinson. 

articulation. I can now speak ; but the nerves 
are weak, and I cannot continue discourse 
long ; but strength, I hope, will return. The 
physicians consider me as cured." 

About this time Mrs. Williams died, another 
of the inmates of Dr. Johnson's house, and one 
of the objects of his beneficence. In the fol- 
lowing note to Mrs. Montagu he thus informs 
her of this event ; 

" Madam : That respect which is always due 
to beneficence makes it fit that you should be 
informed, otherwise than by the papers, that 
on the 6th of this month died your pensioner, 
Anna Williams, of whom it may be truly said 
that she received your bounty with gratitude, 
and enjoyed it with propriety. You, perhaps, 
have still her prayers. 

" You have, madam, the satisfaction of hav- 
ing alleviated the sufierings of a woman of 
great merit, both intellectual and moral. Her 
curiosity was universal, her knowledge was 
very extensive, and she sustained forty years 



Life of Samuel yohnson. 295 

of misery with steady fortitude. Thirty years 
and more she had been my companion, and 
her death has left me very desolate. 

" That I have not written sooner you may 
impute to absence, to ill health, to any thing 
rather than want of regard to the benefactress 
of my departed friend. I am, madam, your 
most humble servant." 

To another lady he writes : 

"Last month died Mrs. Williams, who had 
been to me for thirty years in the place of a 
sister. Her knowledge was great, and her 
conversation pleasing. I now live in cheerless 
solitude." 

In the same letter he adds concerning him- 
self: 

"My two last years have passed under the 
pressure of successive diseases. I have lately 
had the gout with some severity. But I won- 
derfully escaped the operation which I men- 
tioned, and am upon the whole restored to 
health beyond my own expectation. 



296 Life of Samuel Johnson. 

"As we daily see our friends die round us, 
we that are left must cling closer, and if we 
can do nothing more, at least pray for one 
another ; and remember that as others die we 
must die too, and prepare ourselves diligently 
for the last great trial." 

As this chapter commenced with letters, it 
may, perhaps, properly close in like manner. 
The following note to Mrs. Thrale, penned 
about the same time with the above extracts, 
comprises sentiments that are not without in- 
terest : 

" Since you have written to me with the 
attention and tenderness of ancient time, your 
letters give me a great part of the pleasure 
which a life of solitude admits. You will never 
bestow any share of your good-will on one 
who deserves better. Those that have loved 
longest love best. A sudden blaze of kind- 
ness may, by a single blast of coldness, be 
extinguished ; but that fondness which length 
of time has connected with many circumstances 
and occasions, though it may for awhile be 



I 



Life of Samuel Johnson. 297 

depressed by disgust or resentment, with or 
without a cause, is hourly revived by accidental 
recollection. To those that have lived long 
together every thing heard and every thing 
seen recalls some pleasure communicated or 
some benefit conferred, some petty quarrel or 
some slight endearment. Esteem of great 
powers, or amiable qualities newly discovered, 
may embroider a day or a week, but a friend- 
ship of twenty years is interwoven with the 
texture of a life. A friend may be often found 
and lost ; but an old friend never can be found, 
and nature has provided that he cannot easily 
be lost." 



298 Life of Samuel yohnson. 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 

In this chapter we hazard the insertion of one 
or two more conversations, especially as they 
are a part of such as occurred in the last year 
of Dr. Johnson's life. 

The following is interesting, as several names 
are mentioned that are more familiar to us than 
many English names of the last century : 

" I dined yesterday at Mrs. Garrick's with 
Mrs. Carter, Miss Hannah More, and Fanny 
Burney. Three such women are not to be 
found ; I know not where I could iind a fourth, 
except Mrs. Lennox, who is superior to them all." 

Boswell. What ! had you them all to your- 
self, sir.? 

Johnson. I had them all, as much as they 
were had ; but it might have been better had 
there been more company there. 

B. Might not Mrs. Montague have been a 
fourth .? 



r 



Life of Samuel JoJinson. 299 

J. Sir, Mrs. Montague does not make a trade 
of her wit ; but Mrs. Montague is a very ex- 
traordinary woman ; she has a constant stream 
of conversation, and it is always impregnated ; 
it has always meaning. 

B. Mr, Burke has a constant stream of con- 
versation. 

J. Yes, sir ; if a man were to go, by chance, 
at the same time with Burke under a shed to 
shun a shower, he would say, " This is an ex- 
traordinary man." If Burke should go into a 
stable to see his horse dressed, the ostler would 
say, " We have had an extraordinary man 
here." 

B. Foote was a man who never failed in 
conversation. If he had gone into a stable — 

J. Sir, if he had gone into the stable the 
ostler would have said, " Here has been a 
comical fellow ;" but he would not have re- 
spected him. 

B. And, sir, the ostler would have answered 
him ; would have given him as good as he 
brought, as the common saying is. 



300 Life of Saniitel yoJinson. 

J. Yes, sir ; and Foote would have answered 
the ostler. When Burke does not descend to 
be merry his conversation is very superior 
indeed. There is no proportion between the 
powers which he shows in serious talk and 
jocularity. When he lets himself down to that 
he is in the kennel. 

In this last sentiment respecting Burke 
several competent judges seem to have dis- 
agreed with Johnson, and insisted that the 
former was often very happy in merry con- 
versation as well as in that which was more 
serious. 

In the midst of this conversation Johnson 
called out to the company with a sudden air of 
exultation, " O, gentlemen, I must tell you a 
very great thing ! The Empress of Russia has 
ordered ' The Rambler ' to be translated into 
the Russian Language ; so I shall be read on 
the banks of the Wolga. Horace boasts that 
his fame would extend as far as the banks of 
the Rhone ; now the Wolga is further from me 
than the Rhone was from Horace." 



Life of Samuel Johnson. 301 

Bos well. You must certainly be pleased with 
this, sir. 

Johnson. I am pleased, sir, to be sure. A 
man is pleased to find he has succeeded in that 
which he has endeavored to do. 

Soon after this he is on a visit at Oxford 
in company with Boswell, and among many 
other conversations is one touching the Roman 
Catholic Church. 

J. If you join the Papists externally they 
will not interrogate you strictly as to your 
belief in their tenets. No reasoning Papist 
believes every article of their faith. There 
is one side on which a good man might be 
persuaded to embrace it. A good man of 
timorous disposition, in great doubt of his ac- 
ceptance with God, and pretty credulous, may 
be glad to be of a Church where there are 
so many helps to get to heaven. I would 
be a Papist if I could. I have fear enough ; 
but an obstinate rationality prevents it. I 
shall never be a Papist, unless on the near 
approach of death, of which I have a very 



302 Life of Sanitiel yohnson. 

great terror. I wonder that women are not all 
Papists. 

B. They are not more afraid of death than 
men are. 

J. Because they are le5s wicked. 

Dr. Adams. They are more pious. 

J. No, hang 'em, they are not more pious. 
A wicked fellow is the most pious when he 
takes to it. He'll beat you all at piety. 

He argued in defense of some of the peculiar 
tenets of the Church of Rome. As to the 
giving the bread only to the laity, he said, 
" They may think that in what is merely ritual, 
deviations from the primitive mode may be 
admitted on the ground of convenience ; and I 
think they are as well warranted to make this 
alteration, as we are to substitute sprinkling in 
the room of the ancient baptism.* 

As to the invocation of saints, - he said, 
" Though I do not think it authorized, it ap- 
pears to me that * the communion of saints ' 

* This would seem to imply tliat Jolmsou received the im- 
mersiou theory of baptism. 



Life of Samuel Johnson. 303 

in the Creed means the communion with the 
saints in heaven, as connected with the holy 
CathoUc Church." He admitted the influence 
of evil spirits upon our minds, and said, " No- 
body who believes the New Testament can 
deny it." 

In the following conversation we have Dr. 
Johnson's views touching the casuistical ques- 
tion. Whether it be allowable at any time to 
depart from truth ? 

Johnson. The general rule is that truth 
should never be violated ; because it is of the 
utmost importance to the comfort of life that 
we should have a full security by mutual faith 
and occasional inconveniences should be will- 
ingly suffered that we may preserve it. There 
must, however, be some exceptions. If, for 
instance, a murderer should ask you which 
way a man is gone, you may tell him what 
is not true, because you are under a previ- 
ous obligation not to betray a man to a 
murderer. 

Boswell. Supposing the person who wrote 
19 



304 Life of Samuel yohnson. 

" Junius " were asked whether he was the author, 
might he deny it ? 

J. I don't know what to say to this. If you 
were sure that he wrote " Junius," would you, 
if he denied it, think as well of him afterward ? 
Yet it may be urged that what a man has no 
right to ask, you may refuse to communicate ; 
and there is no other effectual mode of preserv- 
ing a secret, and an important secret, the dis- 
covery of which may be very hurtful to you, 
but a flat denial ; for if you are silent, or hesi- 
tate, or evade, it will be held equivalent to a 
confession. 

" But, stay, sir ; here is another case. Sup- 
posing the author had told me confidentially 
that he had written * Junius,' and I were asked 
if he had, I should hold myself at liberty to 
deny it, as being under a previous promise, ex- 
press or implied, to conceal it. Now what I 
ought to do for the author, may I not do for 
myself .>* But I deny the lawfulness of telling 
a lie to a sick man for fear of alarming him. 
You have no business with consequences ; you 



Life of Samuel yoJmson. 305 

are not sure what effect your telling him that 
he is in danger may have. It may bring his 
distemper to a crisis, and that may cure him. 
Of all lying, I have the greatest abhorrence of 
this, because I believe it has been frequently 
practiced on myself" 

The following conversation with Dr. Adams, 
at Oxford, seems to present to us a melancholy 
view of Dr. Johnson's religious experience as 
he was verging very near the close of life. The 
Doctor was acknowledging his oppressive fear 
of death, when Dr. Adams suggested that God 
was infinitely good. 

Johnson. That he is infinitely good, as far 
as the perfection of his nature will allow, I 
certainly believe : but it is necessary for good, 
upon the whole, that individuals should be 
punished. As to an individnaly therefore, he 
is not infinitely good ; and as I cannot be sure 
that I have fulfilled the conditions on which 
salvation is granted, I am afraid I may be 
one of those who shall be damned. (Looking 
dismally.) 



3o6 Life of Samuel yohnson. 

A. What do you mean by damned ? 

J. (Passionately and loudly.) Sent to hell, 
sir, and punished everlastingly. 

A. I don't believe that doctrine. 

J. Hold, sir; do you not believe that some 
will be punished t 

A. Being excluded from heaven will be a 
punishment ; yet there may be no great positive 
suffering. 

J. Well, sir ; but, if you admit of any de- 
gree of punishment, there is an end of your 
argument for infinite goodness, simply con- 
sidered ; for infinite goodness would inflict 
no punishment whatever. There is not infi- 
nite goodness physically considered ; morally 
there is. 

Boswell. But may not a man attain to such a 
degree of hope as not to be uneasy from the 
fear of death } 

J. A man may have such a degree of hope 
as to keep him quiet. You see I am not quiet, 
from the vehemence with which I talk ; but I 
do not despair. 



Life of Samuel yoJinson. 307 

Mrs. Adams. You seem, sir, to forget the 
merits of our Redeemer. 

J. Madam, I do not forget the merits of my 
Redeemer ; but my Redeemer has said that he 
will set some on his right hand and some on 
his left. (He was in gloomy agitation, and said, 
" I'll have no more on't") 



3o8 Life of Savi7iel Johnson. 



CHAPTER XXXV. 

Dr. Johnson was now struggling within the 
stern grasp of those same two diseases — asthma 
and dropsy — which had laid him up all the 
preceding winter, and which, though partially 
alleviated by the warm season succeeding, had 
returned upon him in the autumn with in- 
creased virulence. 

At Litchfield, his native town, he thus, under 
date of Nov. 5, 1784, addresses Mr. Boswell : 

" Dear Sir : I have, this summer, sometimes 
amended and sometimes relapsed ; but, upon 
the whole, have lost ground very much. My 
legs are extremely weak, and my breath very 
short, and the water is now increasing upon 
me.* In this uncomfortable state your letters 
used to relieve ; what is the reason that I have 
them no longer." 

* Dropsy. 



Life of Samuel yohnson. 309 

Soon after penning this note to Boswell he 
returned to his home in London, where both 
the asthma and dropsy at once became more 
violent and distressful. But death having al- 
ways been to him an object of terror, he still 
clung to life with an energy that was wonderful. 
Yet as he was constantly growing more feeble, 
he was induced by one of his old and long-tried 
friends, Mr. Hawkins, to make and execute his 
will, by which he settled upon his colored 
servant, Francis Barber, an annuity of seventy 
pounds, or three hundred and fifty dollars, and 
bequeathed the residue of his property to cer- 
tain relatives and some other parties. 

He now seems to have relinquished nearly 
all hope of life, and when one of his physicians 
expressed to him a hope that he was better, 
"No, sir," replies Johnson, "you cannot con- 
ceive with what acceleration I advance toward 
death." 

To another of his physicians, however. Dr. 
Brocklesby, in whom he placed great confi- 
dence, he proposed that the Doctor would tell 



3IO Life of Samuel Johnson. 

him plainly whether he could recover. "Give 
me," said he, "a direct answer." The Doctor, 
having first asked him if he could bear the 
whole truth, which way soever it might lead, 
and being answered that he could, declared 
that, in his opinion, he could not recover with- 
out a miracle. " Then," said Johnson, " I will 
take no more physic, not even my opiates ; for 
I have prayed that I may render up my soul to 
God unclouded." In this resolution he perse- 
vered, and, at the same time, used only the 
weakest kind of sustenance. 

His last days were characterized by sincere 
penitence, prayer, and hope ; and on the even- 
ing of Dec. 13, 1784, uttering the words. Jam 
moritttnis, " Now I am about to die," he expired 
without a groan, or the least sign of pain or 
uneasiness. 

The sickness of Dr. Johnson was attended 
with great suffering, yet there are ample testi- 
monies that, for some time before his deaths 
"all his fears were calmed and absorbed by the 
prevalence of his faith and his trust in the 



Life of Samuel Johnson. 311 

merits and propitiation of Jesus Christ." He 
"was perfectly composed, strong in hope, and 
resigned to death." 

Dr. Johnson was buried in Westminster Ab- 
bey, and a monument to his memory was 
erected, by a number of his friends and admir- 
ers, in St. Paul's Cathedral. 



312 Life of Sanmel JoJinson. 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 

This little work would hardly be complete un- 
less it should present more fully the views of 
Dr. Johnson on certain important topics already 
introduced in the preceding pages. 

On the subjects of books and reading we must 
note some thoughts. 

" Alas, Madam ! " he says to Mrs. Thralc, 
" how few books are there of which one ever 
can arrive at the last page! Was there ever 
yet any thing written by mere man that was 
wished longer by its readers, excepting ' Don 
Quixote,' ' Robinson Crusoe,' and ' The Pil- 
grim's Progress.-*'" Next to Homer's "Iliad," 
he ranked, as a book of entertainment, the 
work of Cervantes as the greatest in the 
world. 

" He had sometimes fits of reading, very 
violent ; and when he was in earnest about 
getting through with some particular pages he 



Life of Samuel yohnson. 313 

would be quite lost to company, and withdraw 
all his. attention to what he was reading with- 
out the smallest knowledge or care about the 
noise made around him." 

He was heard to saj that, except such 
books as he considered it his duty to read, he 
never read but one through in his whole life. 
This book was the Letters of Lady Mary 
Montague.* 

" It is strange," said Johnson, " that there 
should be so little reading in the world and 
so much writing. People in general do not 
willingly read if they can have any thing 
else to amuse them. There must be an ex- 
ternal impulse — emulation, or vanity, or avarice. 
The progress which the understanding makes 
through a book has more pain than pleasure 
in it. Language is scant}^ and inadequate to 
express the nice gradations and mixtures of 
our feelings. No man reads a book of science 

* A lady of wit and fashion, born 1690, and died 1'762. Her 
"Letters" are still celebrated, of which an American edition 
has been issned, edited bv Mrs. S. J. Hale. 



314 Life of Sarmiel yolinson. 

from pure inclination. The books that we do 
read with pleasure are light compositions which 
contain a quick succession of events. How- 
ever, I have this year read all Virgil through. 
I read a book of the ^neid every night, so 
it was done in twelve nights, and I had a great 
delight in it.* 

" Dr. Johnson advised me," said Boswell, " to 
have as many books about me as I could, that 
I might read upon any subject upon which 
I had a desire for instruction at the time. 
What you read tJicn you will remember ; but 
if you have not a book immediately ready, and 
the subject molds in your mind, it is a chance 
if you have again a desire to study it." He 
added : " If a man never has an eager desire 
for instruction, he should prescribe a task for 
himself But it is better when a man reads 
from immediate inclination." 

He used to say that no man read long 
together with a folio on the table. " Books," 

* At the time of this reading Dr. Johnson was seventy-four 
years of age. 



Life of Samuel Johnsort. 315 

said he, "that you may carry to the fire, and 
hold readily in your hand, are the most useful 
after all. Such books form the mass of general 
and easy reading. ... A man will often look, 
and be tempted to go on, .when he would have 
been frightened at books of a larger size, and 
of a more erudite appearance." 

To a young man who had been advised to 
read to the end of whatever books he should 
begin to read Johnson remarked : " This is 
surely a strange advice. You may as well 
resolve that whatever men you get acquainted 
with you are to keep to them for life. A book 
may be good for nothing ; or there may be only 
one thing in it worth knowing ; are we to read 
it all through t These Voyages, (pointing to 
three large volumes,) who will read them 
through } A man had better work his way 
before the mast than read them through. They 
will be eaten by rats and mice before they are 
read through. There can be little entertain- 
ment in such books ; one set of savages is like 
another." 



3i6 Life of Samuel Johnson. 

On another occasion he said that for general 
improvement a man should read whatever his 
inclination prompts him to, though, to be sure, 
if a man has a science to learn he must regu- 
larly and resolutely advance. . . . What we 
read with inclination makes a much stronger 
impression. If we read without inclination half 
the mind is employed in fixing the attention, 
so there is but one half to be employed on 
what we read. ... If a man begins to read in 
the middle of a book, and feels an inclination 
to go on, let him not quit it to go to the begin- 
ning. He may, perhaps, not feel again the 
inclination." 

At another time, while enlarging on the 
benefits of reading, he combated the notion 
that knowledge enough may be acquired in con- 
versation. "The foundation," he said, "must 
be laid by reading. General principles must 
l^e had from books, which, however, must be 
brought to the test of real life. In conversa- 
tion you never get a system. What is said 
upon a subject is to be gathered from a hun- 



Life of Samuel Johnson. 317 

dred people. The parts of a truth which a 
man gets thus are at such a distance from 
each other that he never attains to a full 
view." 

"Snatches of reading," said Johnson, "will 
not make a Bentley or a Clarke. They are, 
however, in a certain degree, advantageous. 
I would put a child into a library (where no 
unfit books are) and let him read at his choice. 
A child should not be discouraged from read- 
ing any thing he takes a liking to, from a 
notion that it is above his reach. If that be 
the case, the child will soon find it out and 
desist ; if not, he, of course, gains the instruc- 
tion, which is so much the more likely to come 
from the inclination with which he takes up 
the study." 

He adds at another time : " I am always for 
getting a boy forward in his learning, for that 
is a sure good. I would let him at first read 
any English book which happens to engage 
his attention, because you have done a great 
deal when you have brought him to have 



3i8 Life of Saimiel Johnson. 

entertainment from a book. He'll get better 
books afterward." 

" I would never," said he again, " desire a 
young man to neglect his business for the pur- 
pose of pursuing his studies, because it is un- 
reasonable. I would only desire him to read 
at those hours when he would otherwise be 
unemployed. I will not promise that he 
will be a Bentley ; but if he be a lad of 
any parts he will certainly make a sensible 
man." 

" Dr. Johnson," said Mrs. Thrale, " had 
never, by his own account, been a close 
student, and used to advise young people never 
to be without a book in their pocket, to be 
read at by-times when they had nothing else 
to do. 'It has been by that means,' said he, 
' that all my knowledge has been gained, except 
what I have picked up by running about the 
world with my wits ready to observe, and my 
tongue ready to talk. A man is seldom in a 
humor to unlock his book-case, set his desk 
in order, and betake himself to serious study ; 



Life of Samuel yoJinson. 319 

but a retentive memory will do something, and 
a fellow shall have strange credit given him 
if he can but recollect striking passages from 
different books, keep the authors separate in 
his head, and bring his stock of knowledge 
artfully into play." 

We conclude this chapter with a copy of a 
list of books which Johnson recommended to 
a young man for perusal. It is not without 
interest as coming from such a source, and 
as being a hundred years old : 

" Universal History, (ancient,) Rollin's An- 
cient History, Puifendorf s Introduction to His- 
tory, Vertot's History of Knights of Malta, 
Vertot's Revolution of Portugal, Vertot's Rev- 
olution of Sweden, Carte's History of England, 
Present State of England, Geographical Gram- 
mar, Prideaux's Connection, Nelson's Feasts 
and Fasts, Duty of Man, Gentleman's Religion, 
Clarendon's History, Watts's Improvement of 
the Mind, Watts's Logic, Nature Displayed, 
Lowth's English Grammar, Blackwall on the 

Classics, Sherlock's Sermons, Burnett's Life of 

20 



320 Life of Samuel Jolinson. 

Hale, Dupin's History of the Church, Shuck- 
ford's Connections, Law's Serious Call, Walton's 
Complete Angler, Sandys' Travels, Sprat's 
History of the Royal Society, England's Gazet- 
teer, Goldsmith's Roman History, some Com- 
mentaries on the Bible." 



Life of Samuel Johnson. 321 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 

Dr. Johnson's remarkable powers of conver- 
sation have been partially illustrated in the 
preceding pages. Some further testimonies of 
this may not be out of place. 

'* I do not care," says one, " on what subject 
Johnson talks ; but I love better to hear him 
talk than any body. He either gives you new 
thoughts or a new coloring. 

" As he was a very talking man himself, he 
had an idea that nothing promoted happiness 
so much as conversation. . . . Conversation 
was all he required to make him happy ; and 
when he would have tea made at two o'clock 
in the morning, it was only that there might be 
a certainty of detaining his companions round 
him." 

Of a pretty but silent young lady he said : 
" She says nothing, sir ; a talking blackamoor 
were better than a white creature who adds 



322 Life of Samuel JoJinson. 

nothing ; and sitting down before one thus des- 
perately silent takes away the confidence one 
should have in the company of her chair if 
she were once out of it." 

" No one was, however, less willing to begin 
any discourse than himself. His friend, Mr. 
Thomas Tyers, said he was like the ghosts who 
never speak till they are spoken to ; and he 
liked the expression so well that he often re- 
peated it. He had, indeed, no necessity to lead 
the stream of chat to a favorite channel, that 
his fullness on the subject might be shown more 
clearly, whatever was the topic ; and he usually 
left the choice to others. His information 
enlightened, his argument strengthened, and 
his wit made it ever remembered. Of him it 
might have been said, as he often delighted to 
say of Edmund Burke, * that you could not 
stand five minutes with that man beneath a 
shed while it rained, but you must be convinced 
you had been standing with the greatest man 
you had ever yet seen,' 

" Havinpf reduced his amusements to the 



Life of SaniiLel Johiisoit. 323 

pleasures of conversation merely, what wonder 
that Johnson should have had an avidity for the 
sole delight he was able to enjoy ? No man 
conversed so well as he on every subject ; no 
man so acutely discerned the reason of every 
fact, the motive of every action, the end of 
every design. 

"■ The conversation of Johnson is strong and 
clear, and may be compared to an antique 
statue, where every vein and muscle is distinct 
and bold." 

Another of his friends writes that his conver- 
sation was conducted in conformity with the 
following precept of Lord Bacon : 

" In all kinds of speech, either pleasant, 
grave, severe, or ordinary, it is convenient to 
speak leisurely, and rather drawlingly than 
hastily ; because hasty speech confounds the 
memory, and oftentimes, besides the unseemli- 
ness, drives a man either to stammering, a 
nonplus, or harping on that which should 
follow ; whereas a slow speech confirmeth 
the memory, addeth a conceit of wisdom to 



324 Life of Samuel yohnson. 

the hearers, besides a seemUness of speech 
and countenance." 

" Dr. Johnson's method of conversation was 
certainly calculated to excite attention, and to 
amuse and instruct, (as it happened,) without 
wearying or confusing his company. He was 
always most perfectly clear and perspicuous ; 
and his language was so accurate, and his sen- 
tences so neatly constructed, that his conversa- 
tion might have been all printed without any 
correction. At the same time it was easy and 
natural ; the accuracy of it had no appearance of 
labor, constraint, or stiffness ; he seemed more 
correct than others by the force of habit, and 
the customary exercises of his powerful mind." * 

From these extracts relating to Dr. Johnson's 
faculty of conversation, let us pass to adduce a 
few of his sa,yings and views upon this interest- 
ing subject. 

Mr. Boswell was complaining of having 

* The influence exercised by Johnson's conversation directly 
upon those with whom he Uved, and in directly on the whole 
literary world, was altogether without a parallel. — Macaulay. 



Life of Saimiel Johnson. 325 

dined at a splendid table without hearing 
one sentence of conversation worthy of being 
remembered. 

Johnson. Sir, there seldom is any such con- 
versation. 

Bosirell. Why, then, meet at table ? 

J. Why, to eat and drink together, and to 
promote kindness ; and, sir, this is better done 
where there is no solid conversation ; for when 
there is, people differ in opinion, and get into 
bad humor, or some of the company who are 
not capable of such conversation are left out, and 
feel themselves uneasy. It was for this reason 
Sir R. Walpole said he always talked coarsely 
at his table, because in that all could join. 

" A man," said Johnson, " should not talk 
much of himself, nor much of any particular per- 
son. He should take care not to be made a pro- 
verb, and, therefore, should avoid having any one 
topic of which people can say, ' We shall hear 
him upon it.' There was a Dr. Oldfield, who 
was always talking of the Duke of Marlbor- 
ough. He came into a coffee-house one day, 



326 Life of Samuel Johnson. 

and told that his Grace had spoken in the House 
of Lords for half an hour. ' Did he, indeed, 
speak for half an hour ? ' said one. * Yes.' 
' And what did he say of Dr. Oldfield .? ' ' Noth- 
ing.' ' Why, then, sir, he was very ungrateful ; 
for Dr. Oldfield could not have spoken for a 
quarter of an hour without saying something of 
him.' " 

Of Goldsmith Johnson said : " He was not 
an agreeable companion, for he talked always 
for fame. A man who does so never can be 
pleasing. The man who talks to unburden his 
mind is the man to delight you." 

He said of Burke, that he was not so agree- 
able as the variety of his knowledge would have 
otherwise made him, because he talked partly 
from ostentation, Johnson insisted that the 
happiest conversation is that of which nothing 
is distinctly remembered but a general eifect 
of pleasing impression. Elsewhere he says : 
" That is the happiest conversation where there 
is no competition, no vanity, but a calm, quiet 
interchange of sentiments." 



I 



Life of Samuel Johnson. 327 

He used to say that he made it a constant 
rule to talk as well as he could, both as to 
sentiment and expression ; by which means 
what had been originally effort became familiar 
and easy. The consequence of this was ob- 
served to be, that his common conversation in 
all 'companies was such as to secure him univer- 
sal attention, as something above the usual 
colloquial style was expected. 

''Questioning," said Johnson, "is not the 
mode of conversation among gentlemen. It is 
assuming a superiority, and it is particularly 
wrong to question a man concerning himself 
There may be parts of his former life which 
he may not wish to be made known to other 
persons, or even brought to his own recol- 
lection." 

Johnson himself could not endure in conver- 
sation to be teased with questions. A gentle- 
man conversing with him on one occasion 
asked so many, as " What did you do, sir } " 
" What did you say, sir ? " that he at last grew 
enraged, and said, " I will not be put to the 



328 Life of Samuel Johnson. 

question. Don't you consider, sir, that these 
are not the manners of a gentleman ? I will not 
be baited with what and why ; what is this ? 
what is that ? why is a cow's tail long ? why is 
a fox's tail bushy ? " The gentleman, who 
was a good deal out of countenance, said, 
" Why, sir, you are so good that I venture to 
trouble you." Johnson replied : " Sir, my being 
so good is no reason why you should be so iW.' 
We give one extract more. Speaking of con- 
versation, Johnson said, "There must, in the 
first place, be knowledge — there must be mate- 
rials ; in the second place, there must be a 
command of words ; in the third place, there 
must be imagination, to place things in such 
views as they are not commonly seen in ; and, 
in the fourth place, there must be presence of 
mind, and a resolution that is not to be over- 
come by failures. This last is an essential re- 
quisite ; for want of it many people do not 
excel in conversation." 



Life of Sanmel yohnson. 329 



CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

Whatever may have been Dr. Johnson's 
powers of conversation, it is certain that his 
power of composition was equally extraordinary. 
Hence, to quote some remarks of his touching 
this general subject will, doubtless, not be un- 
acceptable. 

On one occasion Dr. Johnson, Dr. Watson, 
and Mr. Boswell are conversing together, and 
we have the following interesting colloquy : 

Johnson. I advise Chambers, and would ad- 
vise every young man beginning to compose, to 
do it as fast as he can — to get a habit of having 
his mind to start promptly ; it is so much more 
difficult to improve in speed than in accuracy. 

Watson. I own I am for much attention to 
accuracy in composing, lest one should get bad 
habits of doing it in a slovenly manner. 

J. Why, sir, you are confounding doing inac- 
curately with the necessity oi AcAvig inaccurately. 



330 Life of Samuel Johnson. 

A man knows when his composition is inaccu- 
rate, and when he thinks fit he will correct it. 
But if a man is accustomed to compose slowly 
and with difficulty upon all occasions, there is 
danger that he may not compose at all, as we 
do not like to do that which is not done easily ; 
and, a.t any rate, more time is consumed in a 
small matter than ought to be. 

W. Dr. Hugh Blair has taken a week to com- 
pose a sermon. 

J. Then, sir, that is for want of a habit of 
composing quickly, which I am insisting one 
should acquire. 

IV. Blair was not composing all the week, 
but only such hours as he found himself dis- 
posed for composition. 

e/. Nay, sir, unless you tell me the time he 
took you tell me nothing. If I say I took a 
week to walk a mile, and have had the gout five 
days, and been ill otherwise another day, I have 
taken but one day. I myself have composed 
about forty sermons. I have begun a sermon 
after dinner, and sent it off by the post that 



Life of Samuel Johns on. 331 

night. I wrote forty-eight of the printed octavo 
pages of the *' Life of Savage " at a sitting ; but 
then I sat up all night. I have also written six 
sheets in a day of translation from the French. 

Boswell. We have all observed how one man 
dresses himself slowly and another fast. 

J. Yes, sir ; it is wonderful how much time 
some people consume in dressing ; taking up a 
thing and looking at it, and laying it down and 
taking it up again. Every one should get the 
habit of doing it quickly, I vv'ould say to a 
young divine, Here is your text ; let me see 
how soon you can make a sermon. Then I 
would say. Let me see how much better you 
can make it. Thus I should see both his powers 
and his judgment. 

Johnson once remarked that it is wonderful 
how little the mind is actively employed upon 
any one thing or subject. In illustration he 
added : " I once wrote for a magazine. I made 
a calculation that if I should write but a page a 
day, at the same rate I should, in ten years, 
write nine volumes in folio of an ordinary size 



332 Life of Samuel JoJinson. 

and print," " When a man writes from his own 
mind he writes very rapidly. The greatest 
part of a writer's time is spent in reading in 
order to write ; a man will turn over half a 
library to make one book." 

To a young clergyman he writes : " My ad- 
vice is, that you attempt from time to time an 
original sermon ; and in the labor of composi- 
tion do not burden your mind with too much at 
once ; do not exact from yourself at one effort 
of excogitation propriety of thought and ele- 
gance of expression. Invent first, and then 
embellish. The production of something where 
nothing was before is an act of greater energy 
than the expansion or decoration of the thing 
produced. Set down diligently your thoughts 
as they rise in the first words that occur, and 
when you have matter you will easily give it 
form : nor, perhaps, will this method be always 
necessary, for by habit your thoughts and dic- 
tion will flow together. The composition of 
sermons is not very difficult. The divisions not 
only help the memory of the hearer, but direct 



Life of Samuel Johnson. 333 

the judgment of the writer. They supply- 
sources of invention, and keep every part in its 
proper place." 

"A man," he observed, ''should begin to 
write soon ; for if he waits till his judgment is 
matured, his inability, through want of practice, 
to express his conceptions, will make the dis- 
proportion so great between what he sees and 
what he can attain that he will probably be 
discouraged from writing at all. As a proof of 
the justness of this remark we may instance 
what is related of the great Lord Granville, 
that, after he had written his letter giving an 
account of the battle of Dettingen, he said, 
* Here is a letter expressed in terms not good 
enough for a tallow chandler to have used.' " 

When some one was speaking of happy mo- 
ments for composition, and how a man can 
write at one time and not at another, " Nay," 
said Johnson, " a man may write at any time 
if he will set himself doggedly to it!' 



334 Life of Samuel yohnson. 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 

From the immense mass of Dr. Johnson's say- 
mgs, and of anecdotes associated with him, on 
a multitude of subjects, we select for our con- 
cluding chapter a few specimens additional to 
what have been already presented. 

" Much," says Dr. Johnson, " may be done if 
a man puts his whole mind to a particular ob- 
ject. By doing so Norton (afterward speaker 
of the House of Commons) has made himself 
the great lawyer that he is allowed to be." 

Boswell had stated to Johnson that Gold- 
smith had acquired more fame than all the 
military officers in a certain war, except the 
generals. 

Johnson replied : '• Why, sir, you will find 
ten thousand fit to do what they did, before 
you find one who does what Goldsmith has 
done. You must consider that a thing is valued 
according to its rarity. A pebble that paves 



Life of Samuel Johnson. 335 

the street is in itself more useful than the 
diamond upon a lady's finger." 

Of a young author Johnson remarked 
that he "should sell his first work for 
what the booksellers (publishers) will give, 
till it shall appear whether he is an author 
of merit, or, which is the same thing as to 
purchase-money, an author who pleases the 
public." 

" A biography of a literary man, besides the 
common incidents of Hfe, should tell us his 
studies, his m.ode of living, the means by which 
he attains to excellence, and his opinion of 
his own works." In another place he says, 
"The business (of a biographer) is to give a 
complete account of the person whose life he 
is writing, and to discriminate him from all 
other persons by any peculiarities of character 
or sentiment he may have." 

He remarked of Dr. Priestley's theological 
works that "they tended to unsettle every 
thing and settle nothing." "To find a sub- 
stitution," said he, "for violated morality 
21 



336 Life of Samuel yoJinson. 

is the leading feature in all perversions of 
religion." 

He gives the following argument for the 
truth of Christianity : " Besides the strong evi- 
dence which we have for it, there is a balance 
in its favor from the number of great men who 
have been convinced of its truth after a serious 
consideration of the question. Grotius was 
an acute man, a lawyer, a man accustomed to 
examine evidence, and he was convinced. 
Grotius was not a recluse, but a man of the 
world, who certainly had no bias to the side of 
rehgion. Sir Isaac Newton set out an infidel, 
and came to be a very firm believer." 

Boswell asking him what of Baxter's works 
he should read, Johnson replied, " Read any 
of them ; they are all good." 

He thought Baxter's Reasons of the Chris- 
tian Religion contained the best collection of 
the evidences of the divinity of the Christian 
system. 

Of Wesley he remarked : " John Wesley's 
conversation is good, but he is never at leisure. 



Life of Samuel yohiison. 337 

He is always obliged to go at a certain hour. 
This is very disagreeable to a man who loves 
to fold his legs and have out his talk, as 
I do." 

As we have already seen, Johnson thought 
lightly of Whitefield's oratory. " His popu- 
larity, sir," said he, "is chiefly owing to the 
peculiarity of his manner. He would be fol- 
lowed by crowds were he to wear a night- 
cap in the pulpit, or were he to preach from a 
tree." 

Elsewhere he descants upon Whitefield thus : 
"Whitefield never drew as much attention as 
a mountebank does. He did not draw atten- 
tion by doing better than others, but by doing 
what was strange. Were Astley* to preach 
a sermon standing upon his head on a horse's 
back he would collect a multitude to hear 
him ; but no wise man would say he had made 
a better sermon for that. I never treated 
Whitefield's ministry with contempt ; I believe 
he did good. He had devoted himself to the 
* A circus-rider. 



338 Life of Saimtel Johnson. 

lower class of mankind, and among them he 
was of use. But when famiHarity and noise 
claim the praise due to knowledge, art, and 
elegance we must beat down such preten- 
sions." * 

Of Dr. Watts Johnson said that "he never 
wrote but for a good purpose." " His poems 
are by no means his best works ; I cannot 
praise his poetry itself highly, but I can praise 
its design." He thought highly of Watts's 
Work on the Mind, and also of his Logic. 

* Here is great injustice to Whitefield. We caiiDot find that 
Johnson ever took pains to hear this eminent preacher, though 
he was educated at the same University and the same College, 
and very nearly the same time. And all this naming White- 
field in the same connection with montebauks and circus-riders 
is as great and offensive an injustice as it is an unchristian and 
disgusting outrage. Garrick and Foote — as capable, at least, as 
Johnson of estimating true eloquence — heard him often and 
with admiration. Hume, with all his cool skepticism, pro- 
nounced him most eloquent. Chesterfield was overwhelmed 
with his power; while our own shrewd and clear-headed 
Franklin declared him the most skillful preacher existing. 
Such testimonies may be well esteemed as outweighing the 
mere speculations of one who had probably never listened to 
the great preacher, and who could never see much good in re- 
ligion or politics outside of High Churchism and Toryism. 



» Life of Samuel Johnson. 339 

Speaking of friendship he says : " Always, 
sir, set a high value on spontaneous kindness. 
He whose inclination prompts him to cultivate 
your friendship of his own accord will love 
you more than one whom you have been at 
pains to attach to you." 

On another occasion he talked of the ad- 
vantage of keeping up the connections of rela- 
tionship, "which," said he, "produce much 
kindness. Every man who comes into the 
world has need of friends. If he has to get 
them for himself, half his Hfe is spent before his 
merit is known. Relations are a man's ready 
friends who support him. When a man is in real 
distress he flies into the arms of his relations." 

Johnson does not seem to have always 
talked so sensibly on the subject of love. On 
one occasion he went so far as to insist that 
he is " commonly a weak man who marries for 
love ;" to which sapient remark we must sup- 
pose that he deemed himself one of the excep- 
tions when he married his beloved "Tetty," 
twenty years his senior. 



340 Life of Samuel yoJmson. 

Harmonious with the above sentiment 
seems the following conversation with Mr. 
Boswell : 

Boswell. Do you not suppose that there are 
fifty women in the world with any one of whom 
a man may be as happy as with any one woman 
in particular ? 

Johnson. Ay, sir, fifty thousand. 

B. Then, sir, you are not of opinion with 
some, who imagine that certain men and cer- 
tain women are made for each other, and that 
they cannot be happy if they miss their coun- 
terparts } 

J, To be sure not, sir. I believe that in 
general marriages would be as happy, and often 
more so, if they were all made by the Lord 
Chancellor upon a due consideration of the 
characters and circumstances, without the par- 
ties having any choice in the matter. 

If such views appear extravagant, and well- 
nigh ridiculous, what follows sounds more sober 
and rational. 

A lady, in conversation with Johnson, is de- 



Life of Samuel Johnson. 341 

riding the novels of the day because their 
main burden is love. "We must not," replies 
Johnson, "ridicule a passion which he who 
never has felt never was happy, and he who 
laughs at never deserves to feel : a passion 
which has caused the change of empires and 
the loss of worlds : a passion which has in- 
spired heroism and subdued avarice." 

Johnson had but a slight taste for rural life. 
" No wise man," he tells Boswell, " will go to 
live in the country unless he has something 
to do that can be better done in the country. 
For instance, if he is to shut himself up for 
a year to study a science, it is better to look 
out to the fields than to an opposite wall. 
Then if a man walks out in the country there 
is nobody to keep him from walking in again. 
But if a man walk out in London he is not 
sure when he shall walk in again." 

One day they are at Lord Bute's country- 
seat. When shown the botanical garden John- 
son inquired, " Is not every garden a botanical 
garden ?" Being told that there was a shrub- 



342 Life of Saimtel JoJinson. 

bery to the ^extent of several miles, "That," 
says he, " is making a very foolish use of the 
ground ; a little of it is very well." When it 
was proposed to walk on the pleasure-ground, 
" Don't let us fatigue ourselves," he said ; " why 
should we walk there ? Here is a fine tree ; 
let's get to the top of it." 

He discriminated thus between labor and 
exercise: " Labor is exercise continued to 
fatigue ; exercise is labor used only while it 
produces pleasure." 

Of keeping accounts he said : " Keeping 
accounts is of no use when a man is spending 
his own money, and has nobody to whom he is 
to account." * 

We have before seen that Johnson disliked 
being questioned in conversation ; and yet Bos- 
tell tells us that Dr. Johnson had " the happy 
art of instructing himself by making every man 

* This suggests a characteristic declaration of the late Dauiel 
Webster, who, being once in a company where the general sub- 
ject of keeping accounts was under discussion, approached one of 
his friends and whispered, " I never did keep a set of books, 
and, by the help of God, I never will."- 



Life of Samuel Johnson. 343 

he meets tell him something of what he knows 
best." But how, it may be asked, did he make 
every man do this unless by some sort of ques- 
tionmg? And have we not been taught that, 
in conversation, pertinent inquiries addressed 
to one on a subject more familiar to him than 
to us — his profession or business, for example — 
is so far from being ill manners, that it is gen- 
erally pleasing to the party thus inquired 
of? 

Johnson, with more propriety, we think, hated 
long stories in conversation. A gentleman 
conversing with him was saying that certain 
persons at Shrewsbury were much annoyed 
with fleas. He occupied eight or ten minutes 
in his circumstantial relation ; with abundance 
of words informed Johnson that large bales of 
woollen cloth were lodged in the town hall ; 
that, by reason of this, fleas nestled there in 
prodigious numbers ; that the lodgings of the 
persons alluded to were near the town hall ; 
and that those little animals moved from place 
to place with wonderful agility, etc. Johnson 



344 -^^f^ ^f Samuel yohnson. 

sat in great impatience till the gentleman had 
finished his tedious narrative, and then burst 
out, 

" It is a pity, sir, that you have not seen 
a lion, for a flea has taken you such a time 
that a lion must have served you a twelve- 
month." 

Dr. Johnson was much offended at the idea 
of a man's mental faculties decaying by time. 
" It is not true, sir," he would say ; " what a 
man could once do he would always do, unless, 
indeed, by dint of vicious indolence, and com- 
pliance with the nephews and nieces who crowd 
around an old fellow, and help to tuck him in, 
till he, contented with the exchange of fame for 
ease, even resolves to let them set the pillows 
at his back, and gives no further proof of his 
existence than just to suck the jelly that pro- 
longs it." 

Again he said : " There is a wicked inclina- 
tion in most people to suppose an old man 
decayed in his intellects. If a young or middle 
aged man, when leaving a company, does not 



Life of Samuel yohnson. 345 

recollect where he laid his hat, it is nothing. 
But if the same inattention is discovered in an 
old man, people will shrug up their shoulders 
and say, ' His memory is going.' " 



THE END. 



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